Applied Science and CAT Writers Again Excel in Another Year of Competition

By: Marilyn Bossmann
Composition Instructor
Humanities Media and Cultural Studies Department

Applied Science and CAT writers returned home again this year with some nice prizes given at the 12th UC Annual Student Writing Contest Awards Ceremony held at the Stratford Banquet Room, May 20, 2009 and hosted by the University of Cincinnati Composition Committee, University of Cincinnati Libraries and Just Community, University of Cincinnati. The Applied Science and CAT awards added to the notable collection of those gained in past competitions and represent how Applied Science and CAT teachers continue to strive for excellence and scholarship, while mentoring many young writers who come through the composition program. It is worth noting that the creativity, subject matter and organization of each winning essay represented a high level of research activity now expected from students in campus-wide English courses at the University of Cincinnati.

Student essay topics included "The Divine Dummy", in which Darren Warman (First Place Preparatory Composition) examined Into the Wild's protagonist Christopher McCandless's search for meaning but deemed McCandless displayed acts of "a foolish man and a divine person." Hannah Asher (Second Place Preparatory Composition) argued in "Do Women Understand?" that women are trying to imagine how men communicate and that the female gender does, indeed, "understand it's not just a man's world." In a text-based essay entitled "War at Home" which ended with a difficult question ("How does it feel to have your world turned upside down?"), Joseph Brannon (Third Place Preparatory Composition and Third Place English Composition I) researched the sadly recurring phenomenon of what happens to soldiers when they come home from war, as represented in Hemingway, Faulkner, and an essay. Brannon also won a prize for "Benevolent Motives: Rhetorical Analysis of 'Helping People off the Streets'", in which he scrutinized the strategies used by two Pulitzer Prize winning editorialists, to investigate the daily trauma of street people in Los Angeles, now numbered at over 60,000.

Douglas Jiang (First Place English Composition I) unanimously convinced the Composition Committee that his essay "Conscience to Speak Out the Truth" deserved highest honors. Jiang describes the historic moment of the Tiananmen Massacre and how one "young individual just stayed there to stop that tank's massive column, simply taken up by the frustration and anger of the moment." Finally, Benjamin Duncan (Second Place English Composition II) examined old and new data from the scientific media and put forth the arguable ecological notion that the solar cycles are affecting climate change in "The Solar Cycle: An Alternative Explanation of Climate Change."

The Applied Science and CAT students and their teachers are, as follows:

Preparatory Composition
First Place-Darren Warman with Michelle Holley
Second Place-Hanna Asher with Dr. Marilyn Palkovacs
Third Place-Joseph Brannon with Marilyn Bossmann

English Composition I
First Place-Douglas Jiang with Val Gerstle
Third Place-Joseph Brannon with Marilyn Bossmann

English Composition II
Second Place-Benjamin Duncan with Dr. Jo Ann Thompson

For more on Humanities Media and Cultural Studies Department Opportunities at Applied Science - Click Here

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College of Applied Science

www.uc.edu/cas