ROBERT WOODHAM DANIEL FRESHMAN PRIZE FOR EXPOSITORY WRITING

The Daniel Essay Prize is open to any first year students whose essay is nominated by a faculty member. Faculty members may nominate one essay from each course open to first year students. These prizes for expository writing are given in memory of Robert Woodham Daniel, a Sewanee alumnus who was for many years a Professor of English and Chairman of the Department of English at Kenyon College. 

 


 

Competition Rules:

  1. The competition is open to freshmen enrolled in the College for the academic year.
  2. An entry should be a piece of expository prose of approximately 1,000—1,250 words which has been submitted in response to a written assignment. Exceptions to this length rule may be made for essays or assignments as is appropriate. 
  3. Essays will be judged on development of thought, clarity, style, organization, and mechanics.
  4. Entrants are permitted any assistance (e.g., from the instructor, or tutors, or classmates, or secondary material) available to everyone working on the same assignment.
  5. Essays must be double spaced, and submitted as a Word document. The student's name and relevant class information should be included (class number, professor), along with the title of the paper. 
  6. Instructors of classes open to freshmen are entitled to one nomination for each of these classes.
  7. A nominated essay and the written assignment to which it responds must be sent to the Director of Writing-Across-the-Curriculum by Monday, Jan. 15, 2018, for essays submitted during the Advent Semester, and by Friday, June 15, 2018, for essays submitted during the Easter Semester.
  8. The anonymity of authors will be preserved as fully as possible in the final judging, which will be done in July by a representative faculty panel.

Prizes:

The author of the best essay will receive $150 prize money, Second prize will be $100 and third prize will be $50. The first prize winner will also be acknowledged during the Fall Convocation. 

Past Winners:

2022

  • First Prize: Ms. Taylor Tunstall, "The Resilient, Expansive Soul" (English)
  • Second Prize: Ms. Taylor Tunstall, "Oedipodae confusa domus: Double Meaning in Statius' Thebaid" (Latin)
  • Third Prize: Ms. K. R. Stiegler, "Reclamation in Roman Britain" (Classics)

2021

  • First Prize: Mr. Benjamin Classens, "Odysseus the Anti-Tragic Hero" (English)
  • Second Prize: Ms. Grace Parkhill, "Who's Beautiful" (History)
  • Third Prize: Ms. Caroline Hoskins, "'Country woman who loved mean': A Look at the Development of Cee's Character in Relation to Older Women in Toni Morrison's Home" (English)

2020

  • First Prize: Ms. Sarah Hall, "A Woman's Voice" (English)
  • Second Prize: Mr. Kristopher Kennedy, "The Ovidian Opifex in Joyce" (English)
  • Third Prize: Ms. Elizabeth Wells, "America's Hidden Contradictions: An Analysis of A Wreath for Emmett Till" (English)

2019

  • First Prize: Mr. Elijah Greiner, "What a Thunderchicken Taught Me About Brotherly Love" (Religion)
  • Second Prize: Ms. Kendall Stallings, "'A fiction of law and custom': Clothing and Cross-Dressing as a Critique of Race and a Means of Avoiding Detection" (English)
  • Third Prize: Mr. Nathanial Klein, "The Many Faces of Virtue: Layered Meaning in James Joyce's Grace" (English)

2018

  • First Prize: Mr. Bramwell Atkins, “Magrezza and the Transformation of Suffering and Desire” (English)
  • Second Prize: Mr. Luke Williamson, “Medusa’s Reciprocal Gaze in the British Museum’s Item 1867,0507.396” (Classics)
  • Third Prize: Mr. Luke Williamson, “On Duality and Race in ‘Eve of Janus Debutante Ball” (English)

2017

  • First Prize: Mr. Patton Tu, “The Higher Hybrid” (Medieval Studies)
  • Second Prize: Ms. Christina Higgs, “Macbeth’s Deadly Sin” (English)
  • Third Prize: Ms. Morgan Jennings, “Form in Twelfth Night” (English)

2016

  • First Prize: Ms. Dayla LaRocque, “A Good Laugh Never Hurt Anyone...Or Did It?” (Politics)
  • Second Prize (tied): Ms. Fleming Smith, “King Lear: Women’s Weapons” (English)
  • Second Prize (tied): Ms Gretchen Steele, “An Exploration of Space in Horton Foote’s Courtship” (English)
  • Third Prize: Ms. Nora Walsh-Battle, “Thicker than Water: Family Dynamics in The Tempest and The Glass Menagerie” (English) 

2015

  • First Prize: Ms. Katy Davenport, “Mortal Koil: The Function of Pastimes in Kevin Wilson’s ‘mortal kombat’” (English)
  • Second Prize: Mr. Zach Loehle, “The Strength and Stability of Athenian and Elizabethan Misogyny” (English)
  • Third Prize: Mr. Jack Russell, untitled essay on Billy Collins’ Sonnet (English)