Dublin School students recently took home two of the state’s top five writing awards from Scholastic.
Seniors Will Arment and Maggie Ferguson each received an American Voices award for an essay submitted to the NH Scholastic Writing Awards. While there were 52 essays eligible for the top prize this year, only five total were chosen from the bunch.
Arment chose to focus his efforts into a critical essay analyzing rap music, specifically white rappers and their role in an ever-evolving genre and culture.
“I listen to an obscene amount of rap music and I wanted to write a critical essay about how race plays into the culture and genre,” said Arment. “There is a difference between respecting art and being an observer.”
While Arment chose to drill into a genre of music he is fond of, Ferguson chose to drill into herself, debating her own existence.
“I wanted to take a big idea and break it down into multiple theories,” said Ferguson. “I ended up realizing that it was irrelevant whether or not I existed.”
Overall, Dublin School has faired better than most in the NH Scholastic Writing Awards, picking up more than 14 percent of the total awards in the past two years: 34 of 218 honorable mentions, 34 of 167 Silver Keys, eight of 52 Gold Keys, and four of ten American Voices.
Dublin School English Department chair Rachael Jennings attributes the success of the student’s writing to the school’s culture of “nurturing authentic voices” both inside the classroom and out, and the freedom for students to submit different genre categories for the awards.
“With that supportively challenging, vulnerability-embracing culture, I think that we are fortunate to be in a place that opens us to sharing our truest writing, our honest thinking, our authentic selves,” said Jennings.
Nicholas Handy can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 235 or nhandy@ledgertranscript.com