Honors English Paper Review 

Running a marathon? Climbing Mount Everest? Writing the Honors Paper in English? These are all challenges meant only for the most physically and mentally fit of our generation, and the paper is perhaps the greatest challenge of all. Each year, junior and senior students are given the opportunity to write an honors paper in English or History over the course of a semester in exchange for a quarter credit. This first semester, three students, Jay Salovaara ‘26, Donovan Herb ‘26, and Zavier Quick ‘27, took on the momentous task of writing the 20+ page English work on a topic of their choosing. 

Mr. Justin Baker, Chair of the English Department, explained the latitude that students are given in coming up with a topic. He said, “What makes it an honors paper is that there’s a theoretical aspect to it…It’s beyond what you might do in an English 11 class, analyzing the color in The Great Gatsby, for example. These students have to pick a concept or idea, philosophical or theoretical, and read it into the text. There’s a higher level of analysis.”

This creative freedom is showcased in the wide range of focus found in this year’s papers. Jay wrote about comedic literary theory and utilizing humor to address existentialist themes with Catch 22 and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Donovan wrote about pessimism through the lens of Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger and HBO’s True Detective, and Zavier wrote on Frantz Fanon’s theories on race and identity as it relates to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. 

The process is a long one. It begins in May when students meet with Mr. Baker to first discuss an idea. Because the students that pursue such a task are typically independently motivated, they often already have an idea of what they want to write about, so Mr. Baker helps them flesh out what they specifically want to focus on, and why. After this first meeting, students typically begin work over the summer to get ahead, especially seniors, as they will have to manage a college and challenging coursework workload along with the paper in the fall. Mr. Baker explained, “I was really impressed with Donovan and Jay, as first semester seniors, taking five pretty hard classes outside of it.” 

When students return in the fall, they typically meet with Mr. Baker about once a month throughout the semester, taking a step forward each meeting. The first meeting begins with discussing what the students now want to argue and creating a basic outline to make that argument. Soon, the students start producing pages, usually in clips of four to five at a time. When the work is finally finished at the end of the semester, the writers have completed a huge achievement they can be proud of. 

The difficulty with an honors paper, as opposed to a traditional class, is that students have to maintain superb time management throughout the semester, as almost all of the work is done independently. On the quality of the final paper, Mr. Baker said, “In just the two years that I have been doing it, Gilman students have produced work that is definitely undergraduate level writing, and in some cases, even graduate level writing. We celebrate a lot of achievements around here, and for this one set of literary scholars, this is a huge achievement.”  

All three writers thoroughly enjoyed writing the paper. Jay said, “It was a great lesson on how to organize a 20+ page paper…it was long, but Mr. Baker really leans into having your writer’s voice come through.” Zavier agreed with Jay, explaining, “I’ve enjoyed reading and writing about both pieces of literature because they helped me gain a new perspective on how the world has viewed Black people and on how Black people can either internalize those assumptions in their personal and professional lives or forge their own path…overall this was a great experience for me because I was able to become more ambitious in my love for writing, history, and the humanities in one project.” Donovan reflected, “I was able to apply philosophical theory to my favorite TV show, True Detective…overall I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it. It was really cool to be able to explore such a niche interest and a topic that I am really interested in.”  

The honors paper in English is no small task, but these guys make it look easy. Working in silence, the community only really sees the final outcome, an incredibly detailed and profound commentary on political, philosophical, and social thought. Mr. Baker concluded, “I think this is one of the things that makes the community so special..nobody’s making these guys do this, it’s really a group of passionate intellectuals.” 

Please reach out to one of these students to take a look at their paper, I’m sure they would all be happy to share. Fantastic work, Jay, Donovan, and Zavier!