Language Arts Student of the Year: 2016

Jane Eyre is a 450-page Victorian novel about a time period in which women were treated like property. It is a complex text that requires intense focus, multi-leveled interpretation, and all the other challenging elements a pre-AP curriculum should include, but it doesn’t captivate Honors English students the way their smartphones do. Many of them missed no opportunity to remind me how exquisitely boring and terrible they found it. I, however, like the novel -- not only for the challenge it offers my students but also for the title character. Jane describes herself as “small and plain,” but from the opening pages, her voice is clear and strong. She is an intelligent, self-assured woman who is way ahead of her time. This year’s Language Arts Spotlight Award goes to someone who reminds me of Jane Eyre: Olivia Hodgson.

Although she is not “small and plain,” Olivia does share many of Jane’s qualities. For one, she was never afraid to express her opinions. On discussion days when the early class was too tired to share, I could always count on her to contribute. She’s smart, too. Students who aced the basic comprehension section of a reading test were often tripped up by the AP questions, but Olivia never struggled.

While I compare her to Jane Eyre, she compares herself to Belle from Beauty and the Beast: “I love to read -- always have, always will. I spend a good deal of my time walking around (usually crashing into stuff) with my nose in a book.” [I can vouch for this.] And in words that would make Belle and Jane proud, Olivia finishes: “I will never dumb myself down for a boy, for my peers, for anything!”

There are many other things I admire about Olivia: She excels at volleyball; she plays in the orchestra and dances to Broadway show tunes in her kitchen; and she proudly admits that she enjoys intelligent conversation! She defines a hero as “anyone who is willing to go against the popular voice,” and as a self-described history buff, she lists Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, and Rosa Parks among those she admires. (JK Rowling, too!) Olivia possesses a rare depth of character for one her age, no doubt a product of her voracious appetite for books of all kinds.

Recently a small group was gathered in my classroom before school discussing things they were reading now that all the torturous Honors assignments are done. One said her current book wasn’t great, but “nothing could be as bad as Jane Eyre.” Offended, Olivia warmed my heart when she responded, “Hey! I like Jane Eyre!”

Her spirit lives in you, young lady! Thank you for all your contributions to Honors English this year!