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Best Essay in a Freshman Writing Course, 2008-2009
"A Jury of your Peers" by Rebecca Scher
Professor John B. Killoran's Citation:
The best citation I can offer for Rebecca's writing is to describe
her essay. The essay is about how lawyers consider race when selecting
jurors and whether such considerations are racist. The essay engages
with a diverse range of sources: not just a course reading but also
the U.S. Constitution, the Magna Carta, a law journal article, a
Time magazine article, and interviews with two lawyers. So
it engages the issue at many levels and from diverse perspectives.
And it's well written. Ask yourself for a moment, How would you
start off such an essay? Here's Rebecca's opening sentence: "One
of the first questions asked after the jury was selected for the
infamous trial of OJ Simpson, the black football player accused
of murdering his white wife, was what was the racial make-up of
the panel." Rebecca thereby makes her essay topical for contemporary
readers, but does not dwell on the Simpson case. Yet at the very
end, she returns to Simpson, this time his second trial. So with
this ending the essay goes full circle, but also symbolically advances.
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