Each year we offer scholarships to North Carolina teachers who express a desire to learn more about Jane Austen and aim to incorporate her works into their classroom. We’re happy to announce this year’s winners. Plus: This year, thanks to a partnership with Oxford University Press, we’ve expanded our scholarship program to include two out-of-state educators. Congratulations to our 2018 JASP scholars!
Brittany Bishop
School: North Rowan Middle School, Spencer
Subject: 6th- and 7th-grade English/language arts
Favorite book: “White Oleander” by Janet Fitch
What are you hoping to get out of JASP? I expect to get chance to delve deeper into previously unknown to me aspects of Jane Austen’s writing and its connection to Gothic literature. I relish the thought of interacting with fellow enthusiasts, and more than that, I expect to find new and innovative ways to bring my knowledge back to my classroom. I appreciate so much the chance to study and interact with my colleagues on an academic level.
Caitlin Donovan
School: Durham School of the Arts, Durham
Subject: 9th- and 10th-grade English I and II
Favorite book: “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman
What are you hoping to get out of JASP? I desire to grow as an educator with experiential learning I can emulate in my classroom; ultimately, I hope to kindle an authentic love of lady writers and prove that Goth(ic) is not a phase!
Evette Hagan
School: West Caldwell High School, Lenoir
Subject: English IV (British literature), AP English Literature, and Composition
Favorite book: I don’t think I can choose an absolute favorite book, but one that has meant a lot to me, and to which I return frequently, is “The Little Prince,” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
What are you hoping to get out of JASP? I am excited to attend JASP and have the opportunity to meet other teachers, readers, and scholars who share a love for great literature. I hope to come away from the program with renewed energy and lesson ideas for my classroom and my lessons. I am especially excited that the program focuses on works which I can teach in my senior classes.
Anita M. Rubino-Thomas
School: Currituck County High School, Barco
Subject: 9th- through 12th-grade visual arts
Favorite book: My favorite book from Jane Austen would be “Persuasion.” A couple of other favorites would be Salman Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” and Neil Gaiman’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane.”
What are you hoping to get out of JASP? My hopes for the summer program are that I am able to dig deeper into “Northanger Abbey,” incorporating ideas, concepts and themes into unit work I currently do on “Frankenstein.” I love that this year’s program is making connections between the two literary works and I believe the connections will not only reinforce current objectives, but also allow me to look at the work through another lens and create new connections with the objectives.
Kelsey Shea
School: Enloe High School, Raleigh
Subject: 11th- and 12th-grade social studies/history
Favorite book: “Pride and Prejudice”
What are you hoping to get out of JASP? I’m hoping to develop a stronger understanding of the novels and their history. I’m also looking forward to having time to develop cross-curricular lessons with the other teachers and seeing some examples of projects they’ve done in the past.
Oxford University Press scholars
Carissa Bussard
School: Happy Camp High School, Happy Camp, Calif.
Subject: 9th- through 12th-grade English/Spanish
Favorite book: “Wuthering Heights,” but my favorite Austen novel is “Sense and Sensibility” or “Persuasion.”
What are you hoping to get out of JASP? I am hoping to learn how to incorporate these texts into a modern high school setting. I love reading classic novels (well, reading as a whole), and I teach in a school that is extremely low socioeconomically. Last year I began taking students to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., and they absolutely love the experience. They are growing a love of literature, but it definitely is a struggle getting through the language and rhetoric at times. I would like to learn how I might be able to bring 200 years of horror into a modern context that they will enjoy.
Elaine Dasher
School: Sequoyah High School, Canton, Ga.
Subject: 12th-grade AP English Literature and Composition, and British Literature and Composition
Favorite book: One of my favorite books is “Anagrams” by Lorrie Moore. I also love “Written on the Body” by Jeanette Winterson.
What are you hoping to get out of JASP? I’m looking forward to encountering Jane Austen and Mary Shelley together and finding places they intersect. I’m particularly interested in how what they read impacted what they wrote.