NEHS Junior Summer Stipend Recipient Attends Writers’ Workshop

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Christopher Lombardoby Christopher Lombardo
Upper Darby High School, Drexel Hill, PA

Christopher Lombardo received one of the Junior Summer Stipend Awards for study at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania this past summer. This edited blog was submitted as part of his obligation for being awarded the grant.

When I arrived at Susquehanna (PA) University’s Writers’ Workshop this past July, I expected to further develop my writing skills, gain some useful knowledge about the writing industry, and talk about writing with other teenagers. A week later, I walked out with an incredibly expanded perspective on every aspect of writing, had developed a group of fantastic new friends, and had gained the knowledge that there is nothing I’d love more than to spend college studying creative writing. Every day at the Workshop was its own adventure; twenty-four hours jammed-packed with everything from analyzing short stories to dissecting dead fish.

In fact, one of the favorite methods of my group’s professor, Dr. Silas Dent-Zobal, for sparking story ideas involved approaching writing like a method actor would approach a role. Over the course of the week, we played piano while wearing bathing suits to better understand characters that felt out of place, we ran laps on a track and wrote out multiplication tables to energize our minds, and we used random tools (including a rock and a door wedge) to dissect dead fish and learn about portraying sensory details. Each activity developed into a specific prompt, all of which we had to transform into stories. Both the analyses and the activities, all of which occurred during the first two days of the Workshop, played into the overarching goal of the week: we had to write a short story for reading in front of our peers and parents.

In the end, my week at the Writers’ Workshop powerfully affirmed my desire to study creative writing in college and gave me a front row seat to a myriad collection of different writers, styles, methods, and characters. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; from dissecting fish to writing countless pages and listening to many stories, the week was filled with people, experiences, and tales I’ll never forget. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to attend the Workshop.

Left to right: Bobby Mitchell, Christopher Lombardo, Nate Adler, Amelia Channin, Travis Bederka, Allison, Silas Dent-Zobal (and his daughter, Lake), Tom Leggett, Grace Dunnigan, Hannah Davis, Faith Thompson, Catherine Baker, and Mallory Steffey. Taken outside the Writers' Institute.

Left to right: Bobby Mitchell, Christopher Lombardo, Nate Adler, Amelia Channin, Travis Bederka, Allison, Silas Dent-Zobal (and his daughter, Lake), Tom Leggett, Grace Dunnigan, Hannah Davis, Faith Thompson, Catherine Baker, and Mallory Steffey. Taken outside the Writers’ Institute.

The Junior Summer Study Stipend is presented to members of National English Honor Society (NEHS) who are high school juniors, rising to the senior class in the fall of 2014. This award is intended to support students who have been selected or who will be attending a summer learning program that is related to English studies in a direct way. Up to two awards for $750 will be offered each year. Applications will be accepted between April 1 and May 5, 2014.

Junior Summer Stipend Recipient at Cornell University

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nmartinezby Nicole Martinez
TERRA Environmental Research Institute, Miami, FL

The following article is by Nicole Martinez, one of the recipients of the Junior Summer Stipend Award given by NEHS for summer study programs. Nicole studied at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Upon first arriving at Cornell University’s North Campus I was, to say the least, absolutely terrified—exhilarated, of course, but also anxiety-ridden at the prospect of making friends, passing the class, and enjoying the environment. Luckily, such worries were soon put to rest. The campus is absolutely gorgeous, old stone buildings rising high into the sky, rich green grass, trees everywhere. People sometimes complain that Ithaca is too isolated, but it’s more serene than anything. The quaint atmosphere is perfect for getting work done. Friends in class were easy to make as they all loved literature enough to immerse themselves in a college-level English course for three weeks.

Cornell's Bell Tower

Cornell’s Bell Tower

As for the actual academic experience, I can honestly say I wasn’t prepared for exactly how equally amazing and challenging it would be. I took the course “Genius and Madness in Literature,” a three-week course that focused on discussing the fundamental question: what defines genius and what defines madness? Were they two sides of the same coin, did they have a line down the middle separating the two, was it a never ending cycle between the two, etc. We poised these questions concerning the characters and dynamics we encountered in a variety of materials—short stories, novels, poems, music, movies—as well as philosophical work, including works by Goethe, Poe, Balzac, Kant, Kafka, and Freud. Our professor, Professor Schwarz, told us that some of these texts we would not even encounter until our sophomore year of college. The layout of the course consisted of reading a different text every night and receiving paper topics on Tuesday. We’d select a topic of our choice and work on it throughout the week. It was rather difficult to read twenty pages of Kant in one night, but it really pushed us into the college student mindset necessary to excel in the class. It was very much the typical college experience with no coddling of any kind. We had guest lecturers from the Film Studies, Poetry, and Music departments to talk to us about the different components of their areas of study and how they coincide with genius and/or madness. They opened up our minds, encouraged us to question the norms and names society as engraved in our minds, and to see the ways of the world in general.

group-shot

Girl’s group at Cornell University

The experience was just the right balance of independence (going out into town with friends on the weekend) and responsibility (getting laundry done, meeting paper deadlines). It gave a true taste of the college life with no sugar-coating. I thank everyone that supported me (including NEHS) even if it was just words of encouragement. Three weeks were just a taste of my future path as an English (and Psych) major, and I can wholeheartedly say the fall of my freshman year of college cannot come soon enough. If the opportunity ever comes up to spend a few weeks on a college campus, learning from actual college professors, I urge you to take advantage of such an opportunity.

The Junior Summer Study Stipend is presented to members of National English Honor Society (NEHS) who are high school juniors, rising to the senior class in the fall of 2014. This award is intended to support students who have been selected or who will be attending a summer learning program that is related to English studies in a direct way. Up to two awards for $750 will be offered each year. Applications will be accepted between April 1 and May 5, 2014.

Intellectual Freedoms

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Dave Wendelinby Dave Wendelin
Director of NEHS

As the school year begins, teachers make countless decisions as they prepare to welcome students. Those decisions run from the way classrooms will be arranged to the scheduling of curricular units throughout the coming months. Key to the decisions about curricula, particularly for English teachers, is the selection of texts to assign students, the novels, plays, poems, short stories, and non-fiction pieces that are the centerpieces of our discipline. Teachers make those decisions by considering the students with whom they will work as well as the expectations of the unit of study, be that suggested by a national design (Advanced Placement) or a district curriculum guide.

The Bluest Eye coverAt times, teachers select texts that may, in the view of some, be controversial due to language used, action depicted, or thematic complexity contained. In recent months in my community, two texts that have been used extensively in high school English classes have been questioned. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian have been challenged by parents as inappropriate for classroom use. Morrison’s text, although used only in AP classes, has now been restricted to a library holding, available for students but not as a novel taught to a whole class; the challenge to the Alexie text continues without resolution. Interestingly, one result of the negative response to both texts is that educators have now written and posted rationales for the use of these and other texts; such rationales should be an integral part of every English teacher’s files, reflecting the decision-making that goes into the selection of particular texts for study.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time IndianStudents should be engaged in the process of text selection and defense as well; we want all life-long readers to be informed consumers of texts, readers who investigate texts that challenge and clarify their own thinking, that open new realms of knowledge. As students are guided to read challenging and in some cases controversial texts, they begin develop their own sense of appropriateness and, we hope, become defenders of the written and spoken word. Teachers serve as role models in this development. The future needs individuals to stand for the right to read that exists in a democratic country.

NEHS sponsors the Intellectual Freedom Challenge each year, timed to coincide with the celebration of Banned Books Week, scheduled for September 22-28. Sophomore and junior members of National English Honor Society are invited to submit essays dealing with a text that may be perceived by some as controversial. Students are to submit essays that delineate a careful argument for the inclusion of the text for classroom study or support restricting the text in some way. Essays will be evaluated by college professors and members of the Advisory Council of NEHS; the best essays will garner monetary awards for the students and their chapters. For more information, please visit the Intellectual Freedom Challenge page.