Language Arts Student of the Year 2011
In the tradition of Leonardo DaVinci, this year’s Language Arts Spotlight Award winner is truly a Renaissance Man. Involved in practically everything a student can be involved in at Fairfield, and despite a horrible case of dysgraphia (bad handwriting), he is a Thinker with an unmatched drive to share knowledge, discuss differences, test hypotheses, and find answers. This “New World Man” is destined to succeed at everything he puts his mind to…and then to write about it in engaging detail as he has in his Honors English blog all year.
“I have thought often about my future. I have dreamed about becoming a great scientist or a great actor or a great writer,” he wrote in a recent post. Based on the contents of that blog, it is easy to conclude that he could very well be all three, probably at the same time…as well as a philosopher, literary critic, historian, environmentalist, newspaper columnist, health care reformer, and all-around freethinker. In his first blog of the year, he suggested this when it came to posting responses to what he knew would be his often-controversial ideas: “I like comments that agree with me, but I love comments that disagree with me.” This year’s Spotlight shines on a student who already understands that the exchange of and respect for ideas is crucial to the betterment of our world. The fact that he expresses himself so clearly has earned him the praise and respect of his classmates and teachers and is a big part of the reason he is receiving this award. But there’s more!
He’s on the Science Olympiad team (who recently returned from yet another national competition). He played a part in the fall musical. He earned First Honorable Mention in the state poetry contest. He is in Honors Math, Spanish 3, Advanced Band, and Honors English – straight A’s, of course. He was one of the student participants (and the only boy) on the Davis Reads Hunger Games discussion panels at two local libraries. As a regular contributor to the Shelfari discussion forum, he reflected not only on books and reading but on any other topic that happened to arise. He is friendly and polite, busy and determined, charming and engaging. At this rate, he is destined to become a Master of Time, Space, and Dimension.
But you would know none of this by looking at his handwriting. It is ironic that a guy whose penmanship is so abominable that it takes a team of cryptologists to make sense of it is the one basking in the Language Arts spotlight, where writing is such an important part of what we do. But put him before a keyboard, and there is no stopping him. And, actually, that other Renaissance Man, Leonardo DaVinci, coded his own notebooks by writing in reverse, mirror-image. Maybe that’s what this year’s Language Arts Spotlight Award winner has been doing all along.
The Language Arts Spotlight Award goes to Bradley Richmond.
“I have thought often about my future. I have dreamed about becoming a great scientist or a great actor or a great writer,” he wrote in a recent post. Based on the contents of that blog, it is easy to conclude that he could very well be all three, probably at the same time…as well as a philosopher, literary critic, historian, environmentalist, newspaper columnist, health care reformer, and all-around freethinker. In his first blog of the year, he suggested this when it came to posting responses to what he knew would be his often-controversial ideas: “I like comments that agree with me, but I love comments that disagree with me.” This year’s Spotlight shines on a student who already understands that the exchange of and respect for ideas is crucial to the betterment of our world. The fact that he expresses himself so clearly has earned him the praise and respect of his classmates and teachers and is a big part of the reason he is receiving this award. But there’s more!
He’s on the Science Olympiad team (who recently returned from yet another national competition). He played a part in the fall musical. He earned First Honorable Mention in the state poetry contest. He is in Honors Math, Spanish 3, Advanced Band, and Honors English – straight A’s, of course. He was one of the student participants (and the only boy) on the Davis Reads Hunger Games discussion panels at two local libraries. As a regular contributor to the Shelfari discussion forum, he reflected not only on books and reading but on any other topic that happened to arise. He is friendly and polite, busy and determined, charming and engaging. At this rate, he is destined to become a Master of Time, Space, and Dimension.
But you would know none of this by looking at his handwriting. It is ironic that a guy whose penmanship is so abominable that it takes a team of cryptologists to make sense of it is the one basking in the Language Arts spotlight, where writing is such an important part of what we do. But put him before a keyboard, and there is no stopping him. And, actually, that other Renaissance Man, Leonardo DaVinci, coded his own notebooks by writing in reverse, mirror-image. Maybe that’s what this year’s Language Arts Spotlight Award winner has been doing all along.
The Language Arts Spotlight Award goes to Bradley Richmond.
posted by MRT at 8:59 AM
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