Kalamazoo Valley Essay Contest Winners for 2023

Congratulations to the winners of this year's English Department Essay Contest.

Essays from English 110

Narrative Essays

Second Place: Saved from the Dark by Breanna Wallace
Honorable Mention: My Homeschooling Journey by Katherine Wolf

Research Essays

First Place: The Punctuality of Punctuation by Mark Cichos
Second Place: The Modernization of Slavery: America's Multi-Billion-Dollar Secret by Paige Schrader
Honorable Mention: To Love Yourself by Benjamin Meyer

Other Essays

Honorable Mention: The Potential of Video Games by Caleb DeCamp

Essays from English 111

Literary Criticism Essays

First Place: Modernism with William Carlos Williams's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" by Kyra Cochran
Second Place: Ennui within Forbidden Love by Jerome Smith
Honorable Mention: Intimacy by Claire Turner

Personal Response Essays

First Place: My Early Anglophile Years by Don Rabideau Jr.
Second Place: Through the Tunnel of Reincarnation by Jerome Smith

Essays from English 160

Narrative Essays

First Place: Death Changed My Life by Noah Banasky
Second Place: State Finals by Samantha Gorenchan

Research Essays

First Place: Online Versus In-Person Learning: During the Pandemic and Beyond by Annika Steinke
Second Place: The Broken Stool: I Graded the Current System of Retirement and It Earned a D- at Best by Catherine M. Hammond

Essays from English 204 to 220

First Place: The Priest within Man in Sherwood Anderson's "Hands" by Kyra Cochran
Second Place: Church by Kedzie Coleman
Honorable Mention: A Game of Chess: An In-Depth Character Analysis of Ophelia by Renee Gauthier

Essays from English 220 to 230

First Place: Greek Mythology, Lesbianism, and the Intersection Thereof in Fun Home by Ariadne Busha
Second Place: Good Girl by Vanessa Vang
Honorable Mention: Discovering a Favorite Song of Mine by Alicia Gumper

Ron Miazga Memorial Award for Descriptive Writing

It Takes a Village by Madalitso Gracious Give