Congratulations to Letters about Literature 2004
RI Level III Winners

Level III State Winner

Hannah Catabia, 11th Grade
St. Mary's Academy – Bay View, Riverside, Resident of Providence
Submitted by Teacher: Marion Wrye

Herr Remarque:

I deeply admire you, sir, and I've learned incredible lessons from your work, but I feel compelled to say that you ruined Harry for me. Not too long after I first read your All Quiet on the Western Front, I had to audition the St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's The Life of King Henry V. Harry was an exceptional leader, able to rally his desolate troops against the well-prepared French (who have been enemies of both the Germans and the British at one time or another, it must be said). Just before his success on the battlefield, he gave a glorious, patriotic speech and manifested whole-hearted confidence in his men. How hard I practiced that speech, but somehow, I could never get it right! I tried everything within my power to grasp the role. There is an overpass down the street from my apartment; the night before my audition, I went and stood under it in order to practice. Overhead, there was a bombardment of engine noise that fell to where I stood in the damp, wearing short sleeves in January. I truly wanted some way to understand the desperation and fear that fell cold upon Henry and his men.

Truth, as in the St. Crispin's Day Speech, is invariably difficult to define. I am reminded of your character, Professor Kantorek, the once-beloved high school teacher of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The professor's blind advocacy of nationalism and war jolted me, especially as most of the boys he recruited to the military ended up dying in battle. Kantorek revealed a side of reality that I had never questioned before. Is there really such a thing as a just war? Honestly, I've always considered peace and negotiation to be constructive, but I also know that these aspirations are sometimes beyond the horizon of reason and truth. Hope always lies somewhere in between the regions of peace and war, a type of political purgatory where all the dissenters (such as me) are banished.

So every time I tried to incite the invisible troops that lined the walls of the overpass, I failed miserably. War, I had learned form All Quiet, was too dismal to be associated proudly with St. Crispin's Day. No matter how hard I worked, I just could not be Harry. I mangled the entire speech, turning it into a self-reproachful, hypocritical musing in which I did not display confidence in my troops. Instead, I pitifully tried 'to convince myself that I was not immoral for practically sentencing my men to death for the sake of a fleeting thing called honor. I was Hamlet, stranded on a mountaintop with the wrong script in my hands. Somewhere, in the darkness behind me, I heard murmurs of the St. Crispin's Day speech spoken lusciously, proudly, in a way that lured all of my shadow soldiers over to the other side of the hollow. But the voice was not Harry's. Instead, it sounded eerily like Kantorek's.

It is probably in my youth that I first developed my fascination for war. Of course, I was as uneducated an idealist as any child. I would write third-grade essays about how horrible fighting was, then after school I would play war games with my friends. There was something inevitably exciting and heroic about the thought of combat that I could not resist as a child. Often, I took a manic pleasure in tumbling into the dirt, wrestling my opponent into autumn leaves that crunched like skeletons beneath us. I'd morph into Harry for a moment, forcing my enemy into the dust, fighting for my very life. And then I'd get hungry and simply decide to go home for dinner, leaving my muddy boots at the doorway. I never even considered the possibility that I might not be there to wear them in the future.

In many ways, I am still in political purgatory, and I cannot always separate truth from fallacy whenever war clouds the imminent future. But, if nothing else, I've at least scaled the overpass, which I walk along sometimes at night in order to clear my head. If I pause and listen closely enough, I can still here Kantorek stealing Harry's lines in the depths beneath me, always gathering a shadowy crowd, but that's of little consequence. By now, I, too, have memorized the St. Crispin's Day speech. I know what the words mean, and I know where their true place is: not in the mouth of Kantorek.

Faithfully,
Hannah Catabia

Level III Honorable Mention

Caitlin Cienki, 9th Grade, East Greenwich High School
Submitted by Teacher: Mary Ann Liberati

Dear Jonathon Mooney and David Cole,

Tear stained, crinkled pages mark my copy of your book Learning Outside the Lines. You so accurately described life as a child with learning disabilities. Your book inspired me to continue to push through the bad days in the "ivory tower" of education, and to realize how each one of us has unlimited potential. Many educational institutions are attempting to "Leave No Child Behind" while in reality a whole group of children are continually ignored because they learn and think differently. Education in America today is an attempt at conformity. Good students simply learn quickly what is expected of them and mold their ideas to the teacher's expectations.

I was diagnosed with a form of leukemia at age three and a half. During the next three years, I endured countless forms of chemotherapy and radiation. The "cure" simply robbed my brain of accurately processing information. I was left with short-term memory loss and other "wiring" glitches, but I'm still me. I faced adversity young and my educational struggles are another hurdle in my life. I was so impressed with your ability to describe how your education was almost non-existent and how your family became your lifeline. Each of you captured your unique journey through the maze of education so eloquently. The struggles you each endured during your education gives me insight and determination to realize what one individual can achieve when determined.

In our society, gaining a formal education is how we measure success yet there are teachers who cannot tap our creativity. Educators require students to listen, take notes and follow the leader. I am different. I think differently. I learn differently. I follow complicated dance steps; learn words to all the new songs, but struggle in high school. When you describe how teachers could not understand your need to move to think, I completely understood. We are not machines. We are here for a purpose and should not be tossed aside.

Your book gave me hope. I will use it as a guidebook in college (Yes, I am determined to make it.) Perhaps, I can combine my love of dance with helping young cancer victims. The choices I eventually make will be possible because of the words written in your book. Life is not a graded assignment, motivation and perseverance account for so much more than a good grade on a test. Your lives attest to this fact. Many people come quickly into our lives and leave, but the words in your book left an ever¬lasting imprint on what a child with learning disabilities can accomplish.

With high regards,
Caitlin Cienki

Level III Honorable Mention

David Peduto, 9th Grade
East Greenwich High School
Submitted by Teacher: Ellise Wolff

Dear Mr. Wendt,

During my seventh grade school year, I decided that I was going to become an astronaut. It was sometime between learning about Apollo 1 and studying the countdown of the space shuttle that I conjured this idea and promised myself that I would one day fly beyond the heavens above. I want to re-live the days of Project Mercury where there was excitement in our space program, the days of Gemini when space program's prestige was extremely high, and the days of Apollo when we flew to the moon. Upon reading The Unbroken Chain, I know that as long as we continue to unravel the chain and its links' remain fastened, my dream shall come true.

Ever since I have aspired to become an astronaut, I have been reading books on space and space travel written by historians, astronauts, and flight controllers. Never before, however, have I read a novel about the "space age" authored by someone of your position. I have read what it was like inside the spacecraft before a launch, what the atmosphere was like in the control room, but never what it was like to be the man in charge of the launch pad and all of its activities. In reading your novel, I was able to see what goes on inside the white room right before a launch, something I wanted to understand better before reading and something that I found fascinating.

The Unbroken Chain provided me with a glimpse of the leadership that was not only necessary for the success of the space program in the '50s and '60s, but also in its success today and in the future. I also find myself in a role that requires leadership, as I am the president of the freshman class at East Greenwich High School. I now realize how important it is to speak up in situations where even the smallest aspect does not seem to be functioning properly. My decisions as a class president may not be crucial to the outcome of a space mission or impact lives of other human beings, but they are taken into consideration as though they were.

Mr. Wendt, your insight also provided me with a sense of your including all the "little" people that make something as massive as the American space program function. When most people think of NASA, the first people that they think of are astronauts. The extraordinary people that astronauts may be, their journeys into space are not only produced by themselves, but by tens of thousands of people who have never been mentioned for their accomplishments. Just because these people aren't the most famous or have the highest salary does not mean that they should not be treated or respected as those they are. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people (people I know in East Greenwich) who do not respect the people who work under them and simply walk right over them, but not you. You have brought this to attention in your novel (in the NASA aspect) and it proves that everyone is a link in a chain and if it is not respected by those around it, the entire chain shall break and nothing can be accomplished.

Hard work is mandatory for success. I have realized that in order to fulfill my goals and live up to my potential, I must work as hard as I possibly can and challenge myself everyday. Through sports and school, I have so far thus done so and intend to continue to work hard and challenge myself so that I can obtain my goal of becoming an astronaut. There have been times where it seems like this would never come true, between all the math and science I must know, the credentials I will need, and the vast number of others who dream of flying into outer space. The Unbroken Chain has given me all I need to know about hard work and challenging myself, which is that it pays off ten fold. Your personal experiences retold in the novel prove to me that if I continue to work hard and challenge myself, I will become an astronaut and fulfill my childhood dream. I thank you for putting such a wonderful novel into my life Mr. Wendt and allowing your interests and experiences to shared not only be myself, but everyone.

Sincerely,
David Peduto