This year’s Meringoff High School Essay Awards went to two eleventh grade students of the same teacher and ALSCW member, Helaine L. Smith, whose most recent text, Teaching Particulars: Literary Conversations in Grades 6-12 (Paul Dry Books, 2015) describes the sort of classroom teaching out of which such writing grows. The link to the book’s website is http://www.pauldrybooks.com/products/teaching-particulars.
Both Sylvie Thode’s essay, “Seeking Out Solace,” which addresses Lear’s going-off-to-prison speech at V.iii, and Sophie Starck’s essay on Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “Questions of Travel,” reveal what close textual examination can yield.