After four years of work, seniors find themselves in the final stretch to receive their diplomas. However, before they can walk across the stage at graduation, there’s one more task they have to complete: the senior project.
The senior project is a graduation requirement completed in a senior’s English class, and it consists of a research paper and class presentation. The rubric for the project doesn’t change from class to class, but the criteria for the topic does.
In Academic English 12, students presented an argument on a topic relating to their career choice. Similarly, in Honors English 12, projects were based on something to do with the students’ future field of work or study.
“The process started with researching common problems in physical therapy and being able to find one that is argumentative, until I stumbled on insurance problems,” senior Academic English student Braxton Eckenrode said. “That’s what sparked my interest in my current topic and decided I could make a strong senior project regarding said topic. After that, it was just a matter of finding the articles and highlighting the main problems patients have faced over the years.”
In Core English 12, projects could be on any topic. In AP English Lit & Comp, projects had to be on a book of literary merit.
“We didn’t have any criteria for our topics, it could be on anything we wanted,” senior Core English student Addison Wilson said. “I did mine on the importance of color-grading in film.”
Teachers had different approaches to instructing the project.
“Mrs. [Jennifer] Lowe split the research into sections,” senior AP Lit student Gabrielle Beldin said. “We would do notes on our research and then write a mini essay on our research notes. The parts that weren’t research based were just written like normal essays.”
Heather Tippett-Wertz’ Academic English classes went paragraph by paragraph to write their papers.
“Our class’ approach was extremely well paced,” Eckenrode said. “Mrs. Tippett-Wertz allowed us the necessary time in class to finish parts and ask questions regarding any problems we might have encountered.”
Michele Janosik’s Honors English classes used the same method.
“I really liked it [the approach],” senior Honors English student Ella Albright said. “It was very helpful while writing the paper. [Janosik] gave us a lot of feedback allowing for corrections to be made.”
Tabitha Quinn’s Core English classes went a different route.
“We had an outline for each part, and other than that we had free will and she [Quinn] went around and helped us as we were working,” Wilson said.
Students had differing opinions on these approaches.
“I wish we started the project sooner,” Beldin said. “I felt somewhat crammed to get it complete, but I do like how all the work was split up into sections. It made it feel a bit more manageable.”
“It was stressful sometimes, but she [Quinn] did help and she was good at helping,” Wilson said. “I don’t like having my hand held, but some kids really struggled.”
Most presentations started around the beginning of May.
“I got a 98% on my presentation, only losing a few points for primarily looking at the left side of the room and saying ‘um’ or ‘uh’ 21 times,” Eckenrode said. “It was a very strong presentation and I was able to fit all of my information within the time frame.”
Albright’s project focused on nature versus nurture in serial killers.
“In the beginning I felt I was drowning in the essay, but by the end the topic became very easy to me,” Albright said. “I presented the first day and it went very well. I ended up with a 99[%] on it.”
Wilson also did well on her presentation.
“It was good,” Wilson said. “I talked for 15 minutes and I got over 100% on it. She [Quinn] really liked my presentation.”
After presenting, students reflected on the experience.
“I would probably pace my presentation better but other than that I loved it all,” Albright said.
“I actually really enjoyed researching my project,” Eckenrode said. “Since it’s related to my future career, I will take any opportunity to learn more about physical therapy. If I had the opportunity to do my senior project again, I would probably try to fit a bit more information in along with refining what I said and how I said it.”
