Jill Barrett
Jill joins us from Centennial High in Franklin, Tennessee. She's planning on double-majoring in English and French, and loves languages, reading, writing, and even grammar. She'd like to be an editor after her Belmont days are done. Her favorite reading material is, as she puts it, "anything," but she especially enjoyed Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible and Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist.
Becca Craig
Becca, from Richmond, Virginia, attended Hermitage High School Humanities Center. She loves the freedom an English major provides for someone like her to apply her talents and more fully express herself. Becca likes all kinds of fiction and poetry and is considering a double-major in English and Songwriting.
Rick Martin
Rick attended Hendersonville (Tennessee) High School. Rick is attracted to English as a major because of the constant change, and because of literature's capacity to free the soul. He believes in the power of writing and of music to reveal who someone is: "In a world of rules, regulations, and processes, they are the way out." He has recently enjoyed The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.
Anna Matlock
Anna, from Nashville, is our second Hume-Fogg alum this year, and is an English major because it's her favorite subject and ultimately it will prepare her well to be a lawyer. She loves to learn and to read all kinds of fiction and non-fiction. Anna refers to herself as "an imperfect perfectionist."
Natalie Merkh
Natalie, who attended Donelson Christian Academy in Nashville, loves to read and write and hopes to pursue a career in publishing, writing, or print journalism. She loves to read poetry and novels, especially historical fiction or thrillers. She has interned at a small publishing company, so she's ahead of the curve already!
Jessica Spradlin
Jessica comes to us from White House High School in Tennessee, after the last 3 years of high school English opened her up to the idea of being an English major. She loves writing and also learning from the texts others have created. As she puts it: "English," according to Jessica, is one of the few disciplines "that connect all the dots and allow us to see where we've been and possibly where we're going." Lately she's been reading anything by Jonathan Carroll and Neil Gaiman (and lots of both classics and comics). She's strangely addicted to Manga and prefers William Blake's artwork to his poetry (sounds like a job for Dr. Hutchins). She's also pretty easygoing.
Valerie Wire
Valerie joins us from Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Indiana. She became an English major because of the capacity for writing to express individuality and its ability to change the world. She likes reading novels, especially historical fiction. She loves penguins, and was in her high school marching band color guard.
This week's poll question, "Who is your favorite Shakespeare character?", elicited these responses:
While Becca couldn't decide on a favorite, Anna named MacBeth, not for what he ended up doing but for what his character can teach us. Jill favored the ever-reliable Horatio (from Hamlet), while Natalie chose Hamlet himself. Jessica couldn't decide between the Fool from King Lear and Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Valerie's favorite was Bottom from AMND, while Rick liked Friar Laurence from Romeo and Juliet because of his roles as scholar and schemer.
Welcome to all of today's new English majors!
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