To repeat your assignment:

Question

"In a five-paragraph essay, discuss which author was more successful in creating a good piece of literature. Use examples from both books to explain your thinking."

And the rubric...

The Student demonstrates an understanding of both books

The student demonstrates judgements about the literary quality of each book

the student supports these judgements with examples from both books

the student prepares an insightful analysis of the lierary elements in the books.

To cover this amount of information and do a good job at it in a five-paragraph paper needs a great deal of planning.
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Basically, you are to write a comparison/contrast paper,
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/comparison.htm
and I think a five-paragraph paper for this purpose is extremely short, but I imagine the assignment is to force you to be thorough, but not wordy!
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/concise.htm

I'm wondering if you did any prewriting at all -- brainstorming, planning (make an outline), revision, etc. Then ... did you write your rough draft from your outline/plan?
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Here is my very general suggestion for an outline/plan:

I. Introduction, including titles, authors, and your thesis statement. (Do NOT quote any part of the assignment in this paragraph. You're already becoming wordy when you do that!)

II. Focus on only one of the books; my suggestion is to focus on the less "successful" of the two you have chosen. When referring to the author, do so only by his last name. Also, you are to deal with the book's plot and literary elements and what makes it a good story.

III. Focus on the other book, this time the more "successful" book.

IV. In this paragraph, you'll need to focus on what it is that makes the book in paragraph 3 successful. You should probably not mention (or barely mention) the book in paragraph 2.

V. Conclusion

Here are more places to get help:
http://writeacherhelps.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
from http://writeacherhelps.blogspot.com

Please scrap what you've written so far and start over. Please read the linked websites I've given you above, brainstorm and plan your paper, write another rough draft, and repost. (Remember to put hit the Enter key TWICE to indicate the end of one paragraph and the beginning of the next.)

Looking forward to your next post.

Answer 1

In rereading my post, I think it sounds harsher than I intended.

What I want you to remember is that, regardless of how many good or bad teachers you've had in the past, there's no time like the present to start learning how to write better. It'll take time and lots of revisions, but if you're up for it, so am I!

=)