Narratives

At the end of each school year, the teachers choose one student who has demonstrated notable talent, effort, or both in his or her discipline. Sometimes it is an easy choice, sometimes not. The following is a speech I wrote for one of these students. If anything, it helped me grow aware of the influence we have on others, and what that influence says about our character. A life, I found, is a narrative. My hope is that mine will be something people would want to read. In any case, here's the speech.

It’s easy to confine literature to the world of concepts. It’s easy to speak of character, of plot lines with internal conflicts and complications, of suspense, climax, and of motivations that compel a character to act as she does. It’s easy to speak of literature in this way because, by doing so, you relegate it to the pages of a novel, as though these concepts have no bearing on our everyday lives. Literature, however, was never about books alone. Instead, its greatest purposes are to expose in us our own conflicts, to unearth our own motivations and our own character; and ultimately, to help us write our own stories, stories that affect real characters, and that determine the outcomes of real lives. We are, all of us, authors; and as in literature, the stories we write for ourselves will either inspire others, or repel them. While it’s never easy to be one that inspires, there are those whose stories have been so sweetly written, that you can’t help but define them as classics.

The student I chose to receive the award for language arts was never one to speak out in class. Indeed, this student’s strength could easily have gone unnoticed by other students. It was a strength found not in words, but in a quiet and consistent work ethic that led to A’s in all four quarters. These A’s were not always so easily earned, however. Indeed, this student’s disposition sometimes made it a challenge to perform oral presentations. It says much about this student’s effort, then, to know that she earned A’s on two of the three presentations required of her. To say that this student was quiet, however, doesn’t mean she had no personality. Her effort, meticulous as it was, was matched by her disposition. It was rare not to see a smile on this student’s face, and rarer still to hear of anything negative said about her. Her demeanor, in fact, brought her the appreciation of her peers, and the praise of her teachers; and it is for these reasons that it is my privilege to present this year’s award for language arts, to....