Erica Pan
Grade Level: G9
Program attended: Mindsets of the Time: The Relationship Between Literature and History
Research Paper Topic: How Does "O Captain! My Captain!" best reflect the historical mindset of its time
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Emily Ulrich, Ph.D., Yale
Faculty Advisor's feedback:
"Erica is hard working and bright; she is also earnest and takes the topic of the course seriously. She is articulate in class, and in her writing. Erica wrote a 10-page (!) research paper in which she defended a well-articulated and nuanced thesis statement about Whitman's peom "O Captain! My Captain!". Erica's paper was well-argued, and well-organized. Very impressive for her age, and shows great promise for future humanities projects.”
Who is Erica?
”I was born in the US, but I’ve spent my entire life in China. I’ve been going to International Schools since first grade, and it’s been very enlightening to meet people worldwide.
My favorite subject at school is probably Math, although Science is a close second. I’m in the school Math club and I really enjoy participating in the competitions. I’m also on the school dance team, and I dance outside of school. I mainly dance jazz and ballet, although I would love to branch out into other styles, such as hip hop and urban. I also play the violin, and I’m in the school orchestra.”
Why did you participate in the Junior Research program?
“I participated in this program because I wanted to improve my English analysis level while also learning more about history. The history classes in our school don’t cover a lot about US history, so I wanted to become more educated in that area. I also thought this program would help me with my writing skills. Back then, I was looking for an opportunity to improve beyond the school English curriculum, and I think this was the perfect chance to do so.”
What’s your key takeaway?
“The topic we had for this program was exploring the relationship between literature and history and also answering the overarching question of “how literature reflects or shapes the culture of its time.” We did this by focusing on three poets (Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes) and choosing one of their poems to analyze and see how it reflected its historical time. We needed to research the period, poet, and poem to develop our ideas concerning this program's topic. Afterward, we choose the poem that we thought best represented its time, and through a persuasive paper, argued our points.
In the past, I didn’t know a lot about history in general, but after taking this program, I feel like my vision of the past has broadened; I feel more knowledgeable in general. This program has also caused me to have a greater love for poetry and thirst for discovering lesser-known historical events, such as the Crimean War. It has taught me a lot about the world, and thus, I feel more passionate about reading about the current news.”