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#Post#: 128--------------------------------------------------
An Inside Look at ESP- Manpreet Kaur '14
By: rschiffman Date: March 3, 2013, 6:40 pm
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An Inside Look: English Scholars Program
English Scholars Program, otherwise known as ESP, is an elective
offered in the high school for those who have a desire to excel
in English. The class is made up of three main components:
reading, writing, and research. It is an elective much like an
independent study, where students are able to design their own
projects and work with a teacher to obtain their self-designed
monthly and yearly goals. Some of the most popular projects
students propose are writing collections of poetry, writing
memoirs, researching authors, writing for publication, or
writing full length novels. In previous years, many students
have written novels in a year of ESP, and then decided to take
ESP again the following year to continue with their novel. Even
if you are not a writer, in the previous years students have
done reading projects. These students chose genre of their
choice or books of their interest and wrote reviews about them,
which they then accumulated into a book at the end.
With all these pieces of writing students begin to enter their
works into contests or scholarships for further rewards. This
year in ESP 11 Marielle Lenowitz, Jessica Clough, Katie Cotter,
Kimberly Graef, Kerry Brew, and Justin Hsuan have all won
recognition from the National Scholastic Art and Writing
Competition. Courtney Buble has received multiple responses from
literacy agents for her novel, The Brew. “I spent my sophomore
year working on The Brew and I am now working on the sequel for
my book,” Courtney described. However, Buble has mentioned that
the responses and rewards are just an additional bonus to
getting to express your creativity.
A major event that the class participates in is a seminar held
at Hofstra every year. Last year three published authors
directed the seminar. Matt Blackstone (fiction), Megan Falley
(poetry), and Sweta Vikram (non-fiction) interacted with the
students by giving tips, answering questions, and directing
writing exercises. Many students gain an inside look on how the
process of being a published writer works. Many also gain a
sense of inspiration from talking to published authors who have
just followed their dreams and pursued writing as a career.
All of the work put in by students pays off at the accumulation
at the end of the year exhibition. At the end of the year
students are given the opportunity to present their work to
their peers, teachers, and family members at an exhibition held
in the school library. A portion of this exhibition includes a
visual representation on top of the student’s actual reading,
writing and research component. The exhibition also has a public
reading portion to it, where students are given the opportunity
to read their work aloud. This allows students to build up their
work to some final accumulation and gives other potential
students to get a feeling of what ESP really is. “Last year’s
exhibition really sparked an interest in the class. After seeing
the amount of creative freedom students received in the class, I
made the decision to join as well,” Katie Cotter, Grade 11,
expressed.
So if you’re potentially into writing or reading, consider
English Scholars Program as an elective for you. It’s a great
class to use as a creative outlet and create your own goals and
coursework. The class gives you a great sense of independency
and sense of creative freedom.
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