Writing South Carolina

Description

Young South Carolinians offer their perspectives on and visions for the future of the state

"All of you who contributed to this book write much better than I did in high school." That remarkable observation was made by Pat Conroy in the foreword to the first collection of student writing generated by the South Carolina High School Writing Contest, and it embodies the contest's goals: to encourage young people to write, to think deeply and creatively, to express themselves, and thereby to recognize and cultivate their abilities. This second volume of Writing South Carolina features the insightful and inspiring entries of each of the twenty-nine winners and finalists: high school juniors and seniors who were challenged to share, using any genre, their ideas for making South Carolina a better place to live.

Through essays, poems, and stories, students used their imaginations to celebrate South Carolina and to envision a state that might be improved by addressing civic and social ills, such as domestic violence, racism, drugs, poverty, and educational inequality. Despite being raised in the age of texts and tweets, these young writers offer their unique perspectives—often revealing, thought-provoking, troubling, and exhilarating—in language that is uniquely their own and often eloquent and passionate.

Marjory Wentworth, who provides a foreword to this collection, is South Carolina's poet laureate and has served as a judge for the competition with Pat Conroy.

Sujets

• Writting
• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Universidad Clemson
• Carolina del Sur
• Struggle (TV series)
• Superiority (short story)
• I Wish (manhwa)
• Rant (novel)
• Student?teacher ratio
• Right to education
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place (book)
• University of South Carolina
• Pensacola Christian College
• Suffix (name)
• Black belt (martial arts)
• Private school
• General officer
• Clemson University
• Gordian Knot
• Emory University
• Writing
• Slavery
• South Carolina
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• General
• Université de Clemson
• Université Emory
• Université de Caroline du Sud
• Booker T. Washington
• JR
• Harriet Tubman
• Caroline du Sud
• Martin Luther King
• John Steinbeck

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611177916
• Langue: English

Extrait

WRITING SOUTH CAROLINA
Seated, L-R: Annika Imai, Sarah Saddoris, Sara Rodriguez, Jasmine Shabazz, Rebecca Glenn, Stella Rounsefell, Charish Cauley, Breckon Gardner
Second Row, L-R: Lori Able, Kayla Cordero, Abigail Fourspring, Emily Kaufman, Catherine Truluck, Abigail Harwell, Caley Chastain, Nathan Minsk, Ashley Rudd, Marjory Wentworth
Third Row, L-R: Jonathan Haupt, Khalil Gamble, John Owens IV, Matthew Clapp, Tristan Whaley, Daniel Finley, Nicholson Tate, Elizabeth Bock, Alex Lybrand, Drayton Rowe, Steven Lynn
Absent: Taylor Covington, Sarah Shtessel, Jacob Ross
Photograph by Allen Anderson
WRITING SOUTH CAROLINA

VOLUME 2
Selections from the Second Annual High School Writing Contest
Edited by Steven Lynn and A da Rogers
Foreword by Marjory Wentworth

The University of South Carolina Press
2017 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-790-9 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-61117-791-6 (ebook)

Kim Shealy Jeffcoat, Series Editor
CONTENTS
Foreword
Marjory Wentworth
Acknowledgments
A da Rogers
Introduction: What We Are, What We re No t
A da Rogers
Juniors
Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes
The Gift of Eternal Life
Charish Cauley (First Place)
That Accursed Flag
Cool Guy
Khalil Gamble (Second Place)
Seeds of the Palmettos
Because the American Dream Is Still Alive
Taylor Covington (Third Place)
Break the Mentality
When Fiction Described Me
Jasmine Shabazz (Honorable Mention)
Broken Song of the Wren
Our Most Inexhaustible Source of Magic
Lori Able
On Improvement
Patchwork People
Caley Chastain
Room for Hope
Babies and Dreams
Kayla Cordero
Hardships Bring Wisdom
Believing
Breckon Gardner
Fine Arts Fiasco
Great Expectations of Life
Rebecca Glenn
TARB for Tomorrow
Nature s Undiscovered Power
Emily Kaufman
Saving South Carolina
Everything s Got a Story
Jacob Ross
Finding My Way Home
The Fault in Us
Drayton Rowe
What If?
Empathy in Storytelling
Sarah Shtessel
Paving the Way for a Smoother Future
Proud Patriot
Nicholson Tate
Palmetto Proud
Unknowing Inspiration
Catherine Truluck
Till Violence Do Us Part
Friends and Wallflowers
Tristan Whaley
Seniors
The Guiding Hand
Finding Meaning through Mersault
Abigail Fourspring (First Place)
Fostering a New Bilingual Culture in the Palmetto State
Planting Seeds of Hope
Sarah Saddoris (Second Place)
D.S.S. (Defective, Struggling System)
Thank You, Mr. Vonnegut
Alex Lybrand (Third Place)
Conscience
Braving the World
Annika Imai (Honorable Mention)
His Textbooks
Writing about Writing
Elizabeth Bock
Funding Our Future: Reducing Educational Inequality in South Carolina
Fire, Story
Matthew Clapp
Eye to Eye
Contentment
Daniel Finley
Address of the State
The Humanity of Words
Abigail Harwell
The School System as an Investment
The Yooks, the Zooks, and the Danger of Nukes: How Dr. Seuss Conveys Mutually Assured Destruction to the Children of the United States
Nathan Minsk
A Letter to Daddy
Becoming Royal
John Owens IV
Two Worlds, One Child
Memories
Sara Rodriguez
Education on the Half Shell
My Elephant s Child
Stella Rounsefell
Speak Up: Cassandra s Story
Lessons from Hazel
Ashley Rudd
Contributors
FOREWORD
If everyone could read the entries for this year s South Carolina High School Writing Contest, they would feel better about our future. We all worry that young people don t read the newspaper or care about politics or social issues; these fine essays, poems, and stories prove otherwise. These students are passionate about social justice issues, and they understand the complex links between politics, public spending, and public policy. Their empathy for the least fortunate among us is deeply felt. This is what touched me the most about their writing. Empathy is essential to every type of artistic expression. Creative people rely on their imaginations, and it often takes a great deal of imagination to envision a world that is different (more compassionate) than the one we inhabit. Poet Adrienne Rich wrote, The impulse to enter, with other humans, through language, into the order and disorder of the world, is poetic at its root as surely as it is political at its root. Rich could have been writing about the seniors and juniors whose work is contained in this book.
How do we teach empathy to begin with? It s a complex combination of education and modeled behavior in the home, school, practice field, recital hall, and religious space. It is essential to the well-being of any society, but it is often ignored in our competitive culture. Somehow these kids learned it. Their hearts are big, and I count my blessings to live in a place with such caring young people.
I WAS EQUALLY ASTOUNDED by the sheer knowledge of these students. From statistics on victims of domestic abuse to education spending, these young people know what they are talking about, and their solutions are realistic and appropriate. They should speak at a legislative session. I think we all could benefit from their heartfelt wisdom and suggestions. Whether they are writing out of imagination, observation, or first-hand experience, some of what they articulate deals with difficult home lives (alcoholic, drug-addicted, and/or mentally ill parents) and the reality of attending segregated and unequal schools. Some wrote about the capacity for literature and creative writing to save them. (I hope that some of them experienced a little healing from the pieces they wrote for this contest.) And many of them wrote about these subjects in particularly well-crafted essays and poems. It s not easy to do that, especially when it comes to political issues. Political pieces are often polemic and hammer you on the head with self-righteous proclamations. And there is some of that going on here, but even those pieces are heartfelt and honest. You have to admire that.
Some of these pieces are stunning in terms of language, syntax, and style. Many of the poets created impressive original structures to handle the weight of such difficult material, and I learned a lot from studying their work.
Many of them understand the legacy of slavery on our home place and the deep wounds that permeate so much of our infrastructure and some of our citizens. Many wrote about the symbolism of the Confederate flag, which was still flying in front of the State House when this contest was held. I read those poems with a big grin, because my poem One River, One Boat had just been banned from the governor s inauguration ceremonies that winter. Like many of the students pieces, it s a poem that reminds us that we are first and foremost a community and that we all deserve a place at the table. I was deeply concerned about the racial unrest in the country and the unhealed wounds of slavery that still fester in our home state and continue to impact numerous social justice issues. The flag belonged in the poem, because it felt like the perfect metaphor for where we were and still are in this state and country: divided by political parties, race, and economic status. But now that the flag is down, I am hopeful for the kind of future Khalil Gamble suggested in his brilliant and prescient essay, That Accursed Flag : Removing this emblem of hatred would send a message to the nation that South Carolina has changed and is moving forward. Our state could be seen in a new light, as a state that has evolved into a more forward-thinking and intellectual community. So I say to South Carolina s government: let go of the past.
We re not there yet, Khalil, but we are finally moving in the right direction.
M ARJORY W ENTWORTH
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Don t let this little book fool you. It may seem small in size, but it s big in ambition. Its goal is nothing less than to trigger today s young South Carolinians to start thinking about how they ll improve this state once they re in charge. Their mission is simple, yet not. In 750 words or fewer, they re asked to answer one question: How can we make South Carolina better? (The submissions responding to that question were written in 2014, reflecting research available up to that point.)
We received hundreds of submissions-poems, essays, and short stories-from Abbeville to New Zion. Then came the fascinating job of reading them, of learning what high school juniors and seniors in South Carolina were thinking. What did they like? What didn t they like? What should change? How could that change happen?
The brains behind this effort is Steven Lynn, who, like this book, is unassuming at first glance. Nevertheless, this native South Carolinian finds himself dean of the South Carolina Honors College, which continually ranks as one of the best public honors colleges in the country. Steve has found a stalwart and innovative partner in Jonathan Haupt, director of the University of South Carolina Press at that time. Jonathan s know-how brought you this book and, more important, provided published bylines to writers at a very young age. His savvy also has provided distinguished judge