ABOUT
Humanities encourages students to dig into what it means to
be human and the history of that question through an assortment of
readings and class discussions. Scroll down to see some examples of my work.
TIMED ESSAY
This was one of the first timed essays that I've written.
I was given translations of some of the remaining poems of Deir el-Medina and free to
choose my own prompt. I didn't do any planning outside of reading the poems before
writing it and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I originally wrote this essay on
paper because I find that I can write much quicker by hand. I have typed it up for convenience,
but left any original mistakes. Overall, I really enjoyed writing this piece because I was
able to apply my interest in the ancient world.
This is just a gap. Nothing to see here. :)
This essay was about the poetry of Deir el-Medina, an ancient
Egyptian city of tomb builders. Because they were in charge of burying the pharaohs, the
residents of Deir el-Medina were kept separate from the rest of Egypt to maintain royal
secrets. The city also had exceptionally high literacy standards for the time, which is
what makes this poetry so valuable to our understanding of life in Ancient Egypt. There
are very few instances of writing not done by the elites of ancient societies, so although
the Deir el-Medinans weren't the average citizens of ancient Egypt, they're much closer
than anything else that we have access to. I could go on, but I'll just let you read my
essay if you want to know more. You can read the essay
here and read
the poems referenced in the essay here.
EDUCATION ESSAY
This was the first essay that I wrote this year. I was free to
pick my own prompt, as long as it related to the education system. The prompt that I came up
with was "What responsibilities do schools have to balance practical, career-focused learning
and learning for the sake of learning?". I initially had some trouble coming up with an idea
for this essay, but I feel that it turned out pretty well. You can read a pdf of the essay
here.
SATIRE ESSAY
This is the final essay that I want to include on this page. I
wrote it as a part of our satire unit. In addition to this essay, we read
Johnathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and we were put in pairs to write original satire pieces.
I've chosen to include this information because I feel that it paints a helpful picture of what
we do in Humanities, and want to be clear that while I love writing essays, it's not all that we
do.
These really are some huge manatees!
I was, once again, free to choose my prompt for this essay, as long as it related to satire.
I decided to compare ancient and modern satire. I chose
a Saturday Night Live cold open
satirizing Donald Trump and "Satire IV" by the ancient Roman
satirist Juvenal satirizing Domitian, the last and worst member of the Flavian dynasty. You
can read the essay here.