Colleges are letting out for the summer, and I have met my George Mason University advanced composition class for the last time. They turned in papers on “endings.”
The assignment is designed to inspire students when their energy might otherwise be running dry. It invites them to bring closure on a personal experience, and on the semester.
Because they have read an article by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (“On Death and Dying”), a few write about death, but many more write about the end of a relationship, a vacation or a season.
There is a wonderful symmetry to the articulation of an ending’s significance, and the act of handing over a last paper to the teacher. For most of my students, this is the last college English paper they write. For a few, it is their last college paper, period. Students recognize this connection.
Lily writes about separating from her twin: “She was always there, always underfoot, until the day our relationship changed, the day we picked out the colleges we would attend.”
All the papers are distinguished by their ability to come to terms with endings; in Lily’s case, she recognizes that “our relationship has not ended, just … evolved.”
Nina, too, shows wisdom as she speaks of the end of a relationship: “It wasn’t a waste. It was merely a lesson — a humble one at that.”
Sometimes the ending is on a lighter note. Shradna writes about watching Mason’s last NCAA game with the University of Florida in the packed Johnson Center. “All these people wanted to remain on this high so badly, nothing could stand in our way.” She, too, comes to terms with the end of the season, and reasons that Mason’s basketball team has given the students “hope … and an increase in donations and applications.”
Equally upbeat is Mekdim’s paper about the day he became an American citizen, “which meant I stopped being an Ethiopian.” Yet he concludes, “Ethiopia will always be in my heart.”
Each student writes poignantly and wisely about a different ending that, for all of them, becomes a new beginning.
And so it proved for English 302. At the conclusion of that last class, Stephanie lingered after nearly everyone else had gone. Her reading/writing group had proofread her paper, and she had asked me a few questions about wording and punctuation.
She had made great strides in her writing since January, and was proud of her accomplishment. But she was still worried.
She stood at my desk at the front of the room, holding onto her paper. She looked at it again, and then once more.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to let it go,” she admitted. We both smiled as I commented, “But you have to let it go. That’s what endings are all about.” And she did.
After she left, I took all their “endings” and made the long trek across campus, alone.
Although the semester cycle repeats itself, over and over, each time it is different. Like Lily’s relationship with her twin, it evolves. This class was unlike every other class. And, like them, I will focus on what’s next rather than dwell on what’s ended.
Erica Jacobs teaches at Oakton HS and George Mason University. She can be reached at [email protected].
