Students’ writing about passions heads for publication
People often lose track of what’s important to them. Sometimes
they need to stop are re-evaluate those things that are important
to you in order to better understand yourself. San Benito High
School drama teacher Christina Plank gave her students the
assignment to write an essay to be submitted for publication in an
anthology published by Creative Communications. Of the 48 essays
that were submitted by Plank’s class, 37 were selected for
publication.
Students’ writing about passions heads for publication
People often lose track of what’s important to them. Sometimes they need to stop are re-evaluate those things that are important to you in order to better understand yourself.
San Benito High School drama teacher Christina Plank gave her students the assignment to write an essay to be submitted for publication in an anthology published by Creative Communications. Of the 48 essays that were submitted by Plank’s class, 37 were selected for publication.
When she was hired at the beginning of the year, Principal Debbie Padilla told all the teachers that regardless of what they were teaching they needed to incorporate writing and reading. Plank’s drama classes don’t have many writing assignments, but she said that she’d seen the essay contest advertised by Creative Communications and thought she’d challenge her students with the assignment.
Plank is passionate about her students and appropriately the assignment was to write a 250-word essay about “Something you are passionate about.”
Buddy Emmons, an 11th-grader in Plank’s Drama III class, wrote about “Being yourself.” He wrote about not conforming to someone else’s opinions about what you should be and how judgmental society proves itself to be.
Emmons wrote, “…The ability to genuinely care for all humans in your life seems almost impossible, considering all the evil things people do. I have noticed that as a race, we seem to always find the bad in people before we even consider the good. For a majority of people, it is not high on the priority list to be kind at all. I find this funny, seeing that kindness, caring and compassion are some of the first things we are taught as children; how quickly we forget…”
Ariel Myers, a ninth-grader in Plank’s Drama I and II class, wrote about love lost. In her essay, clearly dedicated to her lost love Chris Gray – a ninth-grader who was accidentally shot while on a hunting trip in January – and encapsulate what made her friend so special.
“…He was a cute, strawberry blonde, freckled boy,” she wrote. “We met in the sixth grade. Sometimes he would feel down about his freckles. He used to think girls didn’t like him because of them. I’d always try to help him out. He was my best friend and I started falling for him. Years passed; we never did anything about it, just stayed ‘tight’ as friends. He turned 15 on January 22. Then it happened, less than a week later, January 28, 2006, he was accidentally shot – gone…” She said that it was hard trying to summarize her relationship and put down into words why it was important to her.
Both of the students wrote about the pains of life in high school, despite the fact that they were writing about things they are passionate about. Emmons through his examination of what “I find this nauseating to be told what to wear, or how to do your hair, or even who to hang out with. Why? So that you can get a friend in disguise who is only your friend because you are seemingly ‘cool?'”
Plank said that she is extremely proud of all her students. She said that according to the Creative Communications website it’s unusual for a single school to submit that many essays that are published,, since usually about one-half of the essays that get submitted are tossed out.
“Throughout my students’ essays I saw recurring themes. I saw a lot of love for family and friends and another recurring theme of one thing that keeps the students engaged either through passion or the heart, be it a talent, or a sport or a pet,” said Plank. “I really liked this competition because it allowed the students to write in a personal way and when they share as a group, it allows the students to know one another better.”
Myers said that she had no problem thinking of what to write about when she was given the topic; Emmons said that it took him a little longer, but writing the essay was no problem for either student.
“It was just 200 words, it might have been harder had they asked for more,” Emmons said. He didn’t think that his essay would have been one of the ones selected, but Myers was more confident. “I’d entered a poetry contest before, from the same company and I’d won.”
Plank likes her classes to be able to bond around their achievements because it’s more motivating and rewarding that way. She said that in addition to the essay contest, she’s entering her students in a poetry contest this month.
“I think assignments like this one help the older students, because they have to submit essays for college, but my main motivation was honoring things that the kids care about,” Plank said.
