In its 20th anniversary year, NEHS is asking student members to participate in its 20 for 20: Social Service Project—if every registered member participates, NEHS students will collectively contribute an astounding 1.7 million hours to improving the lives of others in different ways.
At NEHS, we value the power of individual initiative and the importance of community awareness. Rather than prescribing a specific social service project, we encourage each student and chapter to identify and respond to the unique needs of their local community. Read on to find out how Aubrey Bower and her NEHS chapter at Allen D. Nease High School in Florida created a project to widen the literary horizons of their school community.
Between the Covers
At Allen D. Nease High School, our National English Honor Society chapter has recently reactivated after a lapse of several years. As a fairly new organization, we have been working on what we want our chapter’s impact on our school and community to be. Some things have been great, and others have needed reevaluation in order to maximize what our group can offer.
One of the projects we have created is called “Between the Covers.” Every NEHS student member produces a short analysis of a book they have read. Each month has a theme that we must choose from: January/Romance, February/African-American Authors, December/Holidays, October/Horror, etc. We can choose any book that fits within the theme and then create a page dedicated to it.
We provide a brief description of why we read the book, what we liked about it, why it was so appealing, and why others should read it. Finally, as a sneak peek into the book, we provide a passage, however long we’d like, to reveal our favorite part. We also choose the excerpt to showcase the author’s writing ability; if there’s a paragraph we thought was particularly beautiful, one that illustrates the author’s opinion succinctly, or one that just encompasses who they are as a writer we definitely include that.
Our Chapter Advisor creates a QR code for each review we write, which she then puts on her window for passersby and in the library on a board dedicated to the “Between the Covers” project. This makes it easy for us to share what we’ve done in several places and easy for people to view our work on their phones.
Our goal with this project is to encourage members of our community to read. By including books we have read, our NEHS student members encourage others to read and broaden their literary horizons. Focusing on a different theme each month challenges our members to go beyond their comfort zone and review books they may not have a lot of expertise in, as well as to provide limitations to the project so that we focus on a book from a particular genre of interest to our community.
This project is one of those that our NEHS Officers and Chapter Advisor are working to improve. We have changed the presentation format and the ways in which we promote the project to other people as well as making it more focused on encouraging others rather than an assignment to share among those within our chapter.
I am a senior this year so I won’t know of any changes that may happen next school year, but I can testify that this project has not only been fun for me but has also given me a chance to share something I am very passionate about with more people than I could have otherwise.
“Between the Covers” has been a great addition to our chapter and I hope they continue it for years to come.
Aubrey Bower is a senior in her second year as member of the National English Honor Society at Allen D. Nease High School. She participates in various clubs and organizations including NEHS and NHS. Aubrey’s love of literature led her to be one of the first members of Nease’s NEHS chapter, when she was a junior, after it had taken an extended break. She is challenging herself academically by taking several AP courses and is planning on attending the Hicks Honors College at UNF in the fall. Aubrey’s love for academics has resulted in her majoring in English Education, with the goal of becoming a high school teacher. Aubrey loves her family as well as traveling, reading, and baking. She can’t wait to see what her future holds.
National English Honor Society
The National English Honor Society (NEHS), founded and sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, is the only international organization exclusively for secondary students and faculty who, in the field of English, merit special note for past and current accomplishments. Individual secondary schools are invited to petition for a local chapter, through which individuals may be inducted into Society membership. Immediate benefits of affiliation include academic recognition, scholarship and award eligibility, and opportunities for networking with others who share enthusiasm for, and accomplishment in, the language arts.
America’s first honor society was founded in 1776, but high school students didn’t have access to such organizations for another 150 years. Since then, high school honor societies have been developed in leadership, drama, journalism, French, Spanish, mathematics, the sciences, and in various other fields, but not in English. In 2005, National English Honor Society launched and has been growing steadily since, becoming one of the largest academic societies for secondary schools.
As Joyce Carol Oates writes, “This is the time for which we have been waiting.” Or perhaps it was Shakespeare: “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer . . .” we celebrate English studies through NEHS.
National English Honor Society accepts submissions to our blog, NEHS Museletter, from all membership categories (students, Advisors, and alumni). If you are interested in submitting a blog, please read the Suggested Guidelines on our website. Email any questions and all submissions to: submit@nehsmuseletter.us.
