All seniors must experience the dreaded anthology: a research project that serves as a culmination of English classes taken in high school. The senior anthology serves to test the ultimate synthesis and research skills collected during one’s high school career.
Honors and regular English IV classes have to complete this massive research paper, while AP students do not. In lieu of an anthology, AP students are required to analyze the connection between a poet’s life and works in a single essay.
The process for the anthology includes various essays all surrounding the main theme of a specific book. Seniors must choose a poem or song, a visual (sculpture, painting, tattoo, etc.), and a nonfiction article and write an individual essay about each of these relates to theme. A preface, epilogue, and essay about the book itself are also required to complete the anthology. They also have to write their own creative work (a picture, poem, song, etc.) to hand in. Honors and academic students must get their anthologies professionally bound before handing them in.
“The creative work [was] probably [the most difficult] just because writing the essays on a book is easy because you can take stuff from the book. I ended up writing a poem about being yourself and how a girl ends up finding who she is through hard times. It’s difficult figuring how you’re going to convey your theme in a different way,” said Alison Boegel, senior, of her anthology.
Even though the anthology was difficult and time-consuming for students, they seemed to glean a greater understanding of their topic and themselves through the project.
“My theme was being yourself is the most important lesson life can teach you. A lot of people have trouble being themselves because of peer pressure and their surroundings, environment, job or school. And that it really is true that one of life’s biggest lessons is to be yourself because that’s the only way you can find true happiness,” said Boegel.
Leave a Reply