College application time is here for seniors, but rather than having to do all their essays at home, they’re getting the chance to work on them in English classes.

“My goal is to always have something that is publishable,” English teacher Katherine Allen said. “So what I mean by that is as they are going through the process that they have something that they are comfortable and confident in submitting.”  

In addition to teacher’s help, students had the chance to review their peer’s essays and receive feedback on their own.

“This class has helped me a lot,” senior Dylan Zlatinski said. “We have a lot of time to work on it, and peer grading helps you get insight, then teacher conferences help you manage phrasing and other useful wording.”

As a whole, the process gave Zlatinski perspective on how to write his essay.

“I thought I needed quite a lot of help,” Zlatinski said. “I thought I needed quite a lot of help I had a lot of good ideas, but it was mainly figuring out how to organize them in the best possible way, and a lot of that was trying to figure out what will show stuff about me instead of tell stuff about me.” 

For senior Zach Bishop, working on the essay in class saves him time outside of school.

“It’s just gonna make the process so much more efficient,” Bishop said. “It’s nice to just go ahead and knock out 2 things like essays as grades. I have work and basketball after school most days so it helps to take the essays off my to do list.”