Beyond the grades and test scores, college essays are something that allows seniors to show their dream colleges their true selves. While some see it as their first opportunity of opening up a new chapter of their life, others start to experience the pressure and anxiety that comes along with it.
To help relieve some of this stress, English teacher Kelly Giguere and Head Librarian Michelle Wooding have a solution for struggling or procrastinating students. On October 1st and 3rd they held a college essay workshop that allowed students to get input on their writing while also getting to work on it. The two day workshop provided different learning opportunities each day.
“As senior teachers we wanted to provide this extra service to the wider LHS community. We know that in a lot of the senior elective English courses they don’t necessarily cover college essays,” Wooding said. “Tuesday is more of us talking so we have a short presentation. We basically go over choosing schools and then brainstorming ideas. Thursday is more of a workshop where kids can show up with whatever they have if it’s just a paragraph or if they haven’t started yet. Then, we are available to read what they want us to read.”
As more and more schools become test optional, Wooding and Giguere think that as the essay becomes more “important”, kids are getting worried about writing it. Kids are struggling with the fact that it is not structured the same as an academic essay. Holding the workshop at the beginning of October means it can make sure students can meet the “I Applied” deadline for NH schools. It also helps the counselors who are sometimes overwhelmed at this time.
“Whatever they need in terms of we are just there as a resource, if they don’t want us to read their essay we don’t need to,” Wooding said.
Giguere and Wooding want students to know that the learning doesn’t have to stop after the workshop ends. They hope that students feel comfortable enough to let them know if they need help with their essay.
“We can continue working with students even after the workshops,” Wooding said. “So, if you come on Thursday and only have half an essay we usually end up emailing back and forth and sharing the essays and continuing to give people feedback over the next month or two. It’s a nice way for us to interact with kids we don’t even know and to just make them feel confident that they have a good application.”
Even if students have not even started their essay, the workshop provides students to avoid their procrastination. The workshop also gives students a list of Do’s and Don’ts to think about while writing. Finding the ‘balance’ of a topic is something that the workshop focuses on.
“We tell kids to avoid the three d’s which is divorce, death, and depression. We understand a lot of kids have been impacted by those things, but they tend to either be overwritten about or just a little bit too personal,” Wooding said. “You want to convey the fact that you are ready for college and that you have the emotional stability for college. So that can be a tough one too when kids just want to write about what things are troubling them but it’s not exactly the audience for that so we can help redirect kids when those sorts of topics come up.”
Wooding and Giguere know what makes a good college essay. From the 20-50 seniors Wooding has in her classes alone, she has read a lot of essays leading up to now, her 23rd year teaching.
“I can immediately read the first paragraph and tell you, ‘yes this is great and no this is not’. We have read so many and say ‘this is very original’ or ‘hey I’ve read 20 other essays that are all on the same topic’,” Wooding said. “That doesn’t mean that you need to trash your essay, but it gives more perspective for kids. You could read online sample essays but you don’t necessarily know what people are submitting this year. It also lets us know what kids at Londonderry High School are writing about.”
Giguere has also had her fair share of essays. She said that it “is hard to pick one”. However, there is one that stood out to her from one of her former students. Reading his essay allowed her to learn more about him than she had when he was her student.
“I had a student once who wrote his essay about the dedication pages in a book. He always was mindful of going back to the dedication after he read the book and then thought about it in terms of the book,” Giguere said. “His essay was about how he loved looking at the dedication and then he wrote an essay about if he would write a book someday what his dedication would be and he actually included members of his family and why he was grateful to them. For me, it was something I had never thought about.”
Giguere and Wooding’s purpose for the workshops is to help seniors feel confident in their application. They hope that students can add to their essays from their time at the workshop.
“Our goal is just that they have the best essay possible,” Wooding said.”[We] want to make sure that LHS seniors are well represented in terms of their abilities and writing abilities especially if they feel like they have a good support system through us.”
