Verb Usage and Voice

I am glad I am not the only person who realizes that they do not always "practice what they preach." I also constantly mark up my students' papers with comments such as "poor word choice" and "remove passive voice." In my own writing, however, I find myself using passive voice much too often and picking verbs that do not produce the strong impact that I really want in my papers. Here is an excerpt from my first draft I submitted for workshop as an example:

Proletarian literature uses the focus of the destitute and desperate to show the failings of a capitalist society. One major recurring motif of proletarian literature is violence. Violence is oftentimes used to marshal in a new world, a world that sheds the negative effects of capitalism.

In this passage, I use the same verb twice in three sentences and the second and third sentences slip into the passive voice for some unknown reason. After reading chapter seven in Kolln, I revised these sentences by picking better verbs and placing the second and third sentences in the active voice. Here is my revision:

Proletarian literature utilizes the focus on the destitute and the desperate in order to demonstrate the failings of a capitalist society. The motif of violence recurs throughout proletarian literature. Proletarian literature often employs violence to marshal in a new world, a world that sheds the negative effects of capitalism.

In my humble opinion, simply picking more specific verbs and changing the last two sentences into active voice make the passage more focused and more interesting to read.