York Prep students confront the future in e-book, ‘The Next Step’

York Preparatory Academy junior Elena Walrod doesn’t like talking and thinking about the future. Apparently neither do many of her classmates.

What will they do with their lives? How will they get there?

But students in a York Prep English 4 class found creative and thoughtful ways to confront the topic of what happens after high school when they were asked to write about it.

Their essays were combined into an e-book, “The Next Step,” in which 33 juniors and seniors at the Rock Hill charter school shared their hopes, dreams and fears about the future.

The e-book, finished in January with the essays of fall semester students, is the first of two volumes. The second volume, which will include the work of fall and spring semester students, is expected to be available in May. A book signing is planned.

Elena, 16, doesn’t have all the answers. But she does know that she wants to be happy. So she focused on that in her essay, “My Perfectly Glazed Doughnut.”

“I plan to live my life vigorously and thoroughly,” she wrote. “I will enjoy my long nights procrastinating essays, even though that is frowned upon; I will enjoy snuggling my multiple cats, even though I will be made fun of; I will enjoy stuffing my face with my favorite junk foods, even though I will regret it later.”

York Prep English teacher Tiffany DiMatteo said the school’s board of directors has encouraged grade-level projects. She talked with her students about doing a collaborative book.

Students wanted the project to be about their lives and their futures, she said.

Several students said the essay project forced them to confront things that are uncomfortable to think about. But some said it changed the way they approach the coming years.

Ella Rosenberg, an 18-year-old senior, said the process motivated her to take charge of her future. She plans to attend Winthrop University in the fall and study early childhood education.

She said her essay “plays a lot with the idea, and I do too, of thinking about the future and planning for the future but not forgetting about the moment you’re in.”

The book is divided into several sections, with general themes of “The Past,” “The Dream” and “The Unknown.”

Ella wrote about the unknown.

“A multitude of paths open up before me, some stretching thousands of miles ahead into the distance, some located closer to home,” she wrote. “So many choices, all I have to do is choose one. I refuse to be stagnant. I finally know my next step forward. I breathe, I think, and I dream.”

Sean Allen, a 16-year-old junior, wrote about how his father, who had a difficult childhood, has pushed him to be successful in school. “When I listed all the things he had done for me, it helped me see how much help he is in my life,” he said.

And Nathan Ballew, a 17-year-old senior, wrote about how he doesn’t really have any answers for the future, but that he does want to “pursue spiritual things.”

“I’m simply going to write this and show the futility of words on paper and how little they will affect change to the masses unless the masses want to believe and not just laugh at the hopeful work of some gullible teenagers,” he wrote.

Meghan Joseph, a 16-year-old junior, wrote about getting knocked out and having a brief vision of herself a few years from now, as a college student.

Meghan said the vision made her “realize I need to take school way more seriously than I have been.”

York Prep’s high school principal, T.K. Kennedy, wrote a forward to the book, nothing that if children are the future, “we must provide children with more opportunities to develop their own points of view and express themselves.”

DiMatteo said writing the book gave students more self awareness.

“I had several students who came to me and said they wrote something different than they anticipated,” DiMatteo said, “but ultimately it had a profound impact on them as individuals.”

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 5:23 PM with the headline "York Prep students confront the future in e-book, ‘The Next Step’."