Language Arts Student of the Year: 2019

“Even though this is English class, I would also like to be taught about the world.” she wrote on the first day of school. This year’s Language Arts Spotlight shines on a Renaissance Woman, who does everything and does it well: Honors English, AP Geo, Theater, French, track, soccer, and, I recently heard she’s quite a dancer. She is also a “Phenomenal Woman,” like in Maya Angelou’s poem: “Now you understand/Just why my head’s not bowed./I don’t shout or jump about/Or have to talk real loud./When you see me passing,/It ought to make you proud.” Well, it did! I am proud to stand and tell you about a young woman who puts the honors in Honors English: Greta Svagr!

Most of the “world travel” we did in Honors English was through time: World War II with Night and Animal Farm; ancient Greece with The Odyssey; Victorian England with Jane Eyre; Bastille Day with A Tale of Two Cities. Shakespeare’s Elizabethan England was in there somewhere, too, and we finished off in the dystopian American future of Fahrenheit 451. All great literature, which was either originally in or translated to English, as you’d expect from an Honors English class. Greta handled it all without complaint, as she promised she would in that first-day letter. But what I didn’t mention before is that I couldn’t read the rest of her letter because it was in Czech. See, Greta already knows quite a bit more about the world than most of her contemporaries because she is an immigrant from the Czech Republic, a fact that you would not know just to hear her speak or read her written English. It’s flawless. Language, apparently, is Greta’s strong suit because in her spare time she took French, and I’m going to steal Dr. Krahn’s words here because I can’t find a more poetic way to express it: “Greta Svagr makes you a better teacher. A swan among pigeons. She sparkles when everyone else scrapes by. How she stays so sweet and motivated … astounds me.” Me too!

During the third term, she and her friend Sam created video podcasts based on Romeo and Juliet. Greta’s enthusiasm for the part of Romeo was a highlight of my year, and the balcony scene was unforgettable. But Greta isn’t just interested in classics. Recently, she asked me for a copy “the scariest Stephen King book,” which also happens to be 1400 pages long. (If she can handle the horrors therein, I’m sure she’ll be done by the end of the summer!) I figured anyone who would ask for The Stand could be trusted to deliver a head in a bag to a certain locker …and so it came to pass. With all this gruesome fun, I was flattered when Greta asked me to teach her to laugh maniacally. [Like this: Demonstrate maniacal laugh to crazy applause.]

Greta, I admire the way you embrace learning, make it your own, and seek out new challenges. You never had to “shout or jump about or talk real loud,” but you are a Phenomenal Woman, indeed! I’m glad I got to know you this year!