Dalton News

Warren Johnson Prize for Essay Writing Awarded to HS Sophomore

Warren Johnson, a former beloved English department chair, was devoted to fostering the art and craft of student writing. His family established a fund for a yearly writing prize to honor his legacy. 

The winner of the 2023 Warren Johnson Prize is Zafi W. C. Dvorozniak ’25, for the essay “Parallels Between Language and Speaker's Disconnection from Cisgender Expectations in Jos Charles's Poems ‘XXXII’ and ‘XXXIII’”! The piece was originally written for Dr. Lillo's Introduction to Poetry and Drama class.

Watch the video to see Zafi accepting the award.
Each spring, the English department nominates essays from the thousands of pieces of student work they collectively read over the course of the year. Essays are collated in a “blind review” process, meaning that teachers do not know the identity of the student writers until after all votes are cast. High School English teacher Will Fisher said, “Each of the nominated papers contains a depth of insight, clarity of expression, and structure, as well as a distinct voice that stems from an authentic sense of engagement with a literary topic.”

The Warren Johnson Prize finalists for 2023 are: 
  • Eli Diker '23 –  “Dorian Gray & Pete Davidson: Two Tragic Dandies”
  • Katie Hwang ’23  – ”’That awful stranger, Consciousness’: Dickinson on Mind, Body, and Existential Despair”
  • Charlie Kim ’25– “Dichotomies in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop”
  • Kodi Kim ’23 –  “Style Versus Substance: The Purpose of Education in Country Folk and City Folk”
  • Cameron Lee ’24 – Analytical Collage Project and Statement on the Representations of Femininity in F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
  • Adriannas Tan ’25 –  “The Struggles of a Non-Anglophone in a Verbal Society”
  • Julie Young ’24 –  “Always Now”
English Department Chair Dr. Matthew Lillo, who co-presented the prize with Mr. Fisher at the high school assembly said, “The English department was deeply impressed, galvanized, and inspired by each of these papers.”
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