Lindsey Kundel, a senior majoring in secondary teaching, received two prizes from the English Department at a departmental honors ceremony on May 28. She won the Helen G. Scott Prize for Best Critical Essay in American Literature, second place, for her paper "'This Song Is ... Broken': Kerouac's Making and Breaking of Art and Life" and the Robert Mayo Prize for Best Paper in English 298, second place, for "'As Bitter As Unrequited Love': An Emigrant's Tale of the Betrayer and the Betrayed."
Both of these papers were for class, the first one for English 378 with professor Bill Savage. After reading Jack Kerouac's novel The Subterraneans, she was struck by Kerouac's subtle yet direct language and felt she was "hooked." She comments, "There were two or three lines that I was just absolutely fascinated with: ‘the fact of her - I love her but this song is ... broken - but in French now ... in French I can sing her on and on.' That's where I started and it just kept evolving, growing and changing. I ended up with a 12-page in-depth look at Kerouac equating artistic creation and sexual procreation that spawned from that weird little sentence."
Her other paper, which discusses Salman Rushdie's work, was for English 298 with Leah Culligan-Flack, who "in many ways embodies the type of teacher I hope someday to be," says Kundel. "This paper was my final paper for her class, my feeble attempt to show her what I'd learned from her -- a very daunting task because I feel like she has helped me with my writing and voice more than any other teacher here. ... I sat down there for about 8 or 9 hours straight and wrote the entire thing in one fell swoop. I had never before felt so proud of a paper." Kundel feels this paper is one of her "breakthrough" pieces that helped her understand her growth as a writer and realize how much a teacher can inspire and guide a student.
After graduation, Kundel will begin her master's degree in English literature through Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English at one of the program's four campuses, Lincoln College at Oxford University. This program, which she will continue over three to four summers, is specifically designed with teachers in mind. "After graduation I hope to begin teaching -- either middle or high school -- English language arts and/or drama, speech or newspaper," she notes. She is looking into applying to public schools, mostly in urban areas.
"I look forward to integrating my own passion for writing into my teaching practices, while continuing my education at Middlebury College. My eventual goal is to receive my PhD in either education or English," says Kundel. "I think it is absolutely essential to public education reform to hire teachers who achieve their own highest educational potential. I would be a hypocrite in my classroom if I try to get my students to work diligently to get into college (or achieve whatever goal they set for themselves) if I too didn't practice what I preach, by getting both my master's and doctorate."