Student Successes
students to represent the humanities disciplines. In its description, the scholarship is meant to provide financial support for those who have displayed " academic excellence " in their major( mine is English w / Secondary Education). When the announcement was made, I had multiple past professors e-mail me to congratulate me on the award- at the time I didn ' t know how flattering winning it was. Then, one of the professors on the scholarship committee shared with me that my application " stood out among the other applications to an extent that made it clear to all of the committee members that you were worthy of the support of the scholarships." I have since realized that what I aim to do in my career is defend the humanities in education, so I like to believe that this award was not in vain.
Tonight, I am writing a sample unit plan for a class I might teach one day, 12th grade English. It ' s about antebellum literature, specifically themes of romanticism using Bartleby the Scrivener and excerpts from Moby Dick by Herman Melville as the unit texts. It ' s one of the hardest and best things I ' ve worked on the past four years. I would blow these imaginary students ' minds, I swear.
In the future, I plan to gain experience teaching high school for a few years. I want to help guide the future of education in this country down a path that is productive and true to the original purpose of institutionalized education. I want to inspire students to love learning, not for a future job or because being smart is a contest, but because school truly shapes who you are, and if approached in a certain way, can help shape you into a truly great, intelligent, prepared and cultured person. Next, I plan to attend graduate school and work towards my PhD in Education, a Masters in English. My end goal? To be a professor, of English and education. I don ' t ever want to stop close reading the classics. At the same time, I don ' t want to ever stop doing my part to change the climate of edu-
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