PATTI CROUCH-COOK
US Englsh Teacher, Since 1998
I have a great time with my colleagues and really, really enjoy the students we have at Charles Wright. Occasionally I’ll have an airplane seatmate who, upon learning that I’m a high school English teacher, wants to engage me in a conversation about everything that’s wrong with adolescents today.  I have no time for that.  I can always say with confidence that the students I teach are funny, creative, passionate, and remarkably sophisticated in their thinking.  They never cease to amaze me with the breadth of their knowledge and their partially hidden talents. Yeah, not everyone’s perfect, but as a group, they’re pretty fabulous.

I particularly enjoy working with seniors on their college essays.  Since we generally do so much formal, analytical writing, I love their personal essays and the chance to get a glimpse into their own significant life experiences and what insights they’ve been able to draw from them.  

With the college essay, students are able to take the time to produce a truly polished and engaging piece of writing, and working with them through the process is a pleasure.  Over the years, many students have written about coming to grips with their family heritage, triumphing over adversity, using chance encounters to open up new levels of awareness, or constructing projects ranging from catapults to runaway rockets to minor explosives.   

Many of the essays stay with me over the years, including one by a student who remembered selling bugs to the nice elderly lady next door, another who survived a rafting accident in the Alaskan wilderness, one by a petite girl who had a black belt in tae kwon do and taught adult classes, and many others.  While I know the primary motivator behind the quality of these essays is the desire to get in to a good college, every year I admire the candor and insight they display.