Something was missing from LHS’s long list of honor societies, and junior Mia Robinson noticed.
Despite having honor societies for science, math, social studies, art and foreign language, there was no chapter for students passionate about English. Determined to fill that gap, Robinson decided to talk with English teacher Kelly Giguere about bringing a chapter of the National English Honor Society to LHS.
“I realized there was a lack of opportunity for English-oriented students compared to those keen on other subjects,” Robinson said. “So, I started to wonder how to implement an honor society for English.”
After looking into the National English Honors Society website, Robinson found a section about creating a chapter. She read through it, looked at all the steps, informed Giguere of her interest and, according to Robinson, “we just kind of started from there.”
Whether it was drafting proposals, getting things approved through the school and the district, creating an application for students, or applying to the national chapter, Robinson took on many roles during the process. But, Robinson ultimately gives the credit of adding the National English Honor Society chapter to LHS to Giguere and English teacher Ashley Day.
“I’m glad that I put my idea to action,” Robinson said, “but I definitely couldn’t have done it without them.”
When writing the documents that established the charter, they wrote that the focus of the honor society is to “foster a love for literature, reading and writing.”
“I hope that [students] increase their love for literature,” Robinson said, “but I also hope that they can help make a greater impact on the community with other students who might also be interested in literature. I also want to help those who might struggle through tutoring opportunities.”
According to Giguere, many students have great ideas, and they have the potential to be really strong writers. However, sometimes they have difficulties with organization, understanding fluency, and different aspects of a strong piece of writing. With the help of the honor society, Giguere hopes that these students can have better access to help with their writing.
“I think that we would have the opportunity [for members] to work with these students who might struggle, but to recognize their ideas and recognize that they have the potential, and maybe all the piece needs is a little bit of tweaking,” Giguere said.
Community outreach like this, where students work with their peers to help them grow as readers and writers, is a fundamental part of how this chapter plans to use the knowledge of their members.
“I really hope that it makes a meaningful impact on the school and also just fosters a love for English,” Robinson said. “Declining reading habits has a very significant impact on our generation’s intelligence as a whole. I think reading is really important for social skills, life skills, and all the above in ways that a lot of people don’t realize.”
According to Day, the district is trying to “promote literacy” and this honor society is yet another opportunity to do so.
“I think this being the only subject that is required all 4 years of high school,” Day said, “if you’re in this honor society, you’ve demonstrated that you love English, not just that you’ve just done the work to get the good score or whatever, but that you truly care about the subject and you want to share with other people.”
One aspect that Day is particularly drawn to is the opportunity literature provides readers to feel empathy for characters.
“There’s internal conflict and there’s all this stuff that led to this situation, and we as the readers just see this whole different perspective that you don’t necessarily appreciate unless you’re reading through the character’s point of view,” Day said.
Giguere explained that that aspect of empathy is also “really powerful” to her.
“For me, [literature] is an opportunity to visit a place or a world that I’ve never been,” Giguere said. “I read a couple books now about the Philippines, and I’ve never been, but it’s given me a perspective of this other place in this world where I have some commonalities with the people there, but yet I live 1,000s of miles away, but we have maybe some of the same struggles in life. So I think it’s an opportunity to open up our worlds and teach us about other places.”
NEHS will provide like-minded students the opportunity to experience new literature, help others with their writing skills, and so much more.
“I think it’s just a continued option for the subject, a continued love of reading, fostering the idea of reading and writing and how they’re just important in our lives, and then sharing that with other people,” Giguere said. “I think seeing that there are opportunities for [students] to share that passion maybe in ways they haven’t thought of.”
Robinson “is optimistic” that this honor society will help validate students with a love for English and a future in English-related careers.
“I’ve been around a lot of academically driven students, and at times I’ve felt out of place because I’m more English oriented opposed to math or science,” Robinson said. “So I feel like this honor society will help acknowledge those with strengths more in the humanities fields and that literature has equal importance to STEM.”
