TY Extended Essay: Downham, Christopher, Frank

In her Transition Year Extended Essay, Catie McGonagle wrote on three books which feature women who are trapped in different circumstances: Anne Frank's Diary (original cover, left), Leslie Downham's Before I Die, and Lucy Christopher's Stolen.

Catie writes:-

'I find it exceptionally odd that someone would willingly, and in full knowledge of his or her actions, trap themselves and even get some kind of sick enjoyment out of it. I used to understand why they do it. I even used to think it was a good thing. But now, after reading the three books I chose for my extended essay, I can understand what being trapped really means. The Oxford English Dictionary defines trapped as a verb meaning to prevent from escaping or getting free. But for Gemma, Tessa, and Anne, the characters in my books, being trapped takes a unique new form that is specific for each character and their situation.'

Read Catie's full essay here.

TY Extended Essay: Hosseini, Dickens, Ballard

Last term Eleanor Dolphin of Transition Year received a Commendation for her fine comparative Extended Essay entitled 'Life-Altering Journeys Through Childhood', which ambitiously examined three novels: Dickens's David Copperfield, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, and J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun.

In her introduction, she explains:

Childhood, for me is a delicate fragment of glass. It shines so bright and pure and yet it can strike out with a vengeance and cut the bearer of it to pieces. It can be pulverised and manipulated, but not without effort. A child is pure, optimistic even in the most hopeless of cases. Encased in their own world they are a shining beacon of hope, unaware of the world’s harsh realities. Their instincts are razor sharp and usually correct, yet their beautiful naivety allows them to be made vulnerable by people who have no boundaries.

I think that a child is like a complex sponge, in that they absorb the smallest things occurring around them and are influenced immensely by what they experience. Nine times out of ten, if a child encounters some drastic event or something similar, then they will have this dragging along behind all the way to adulthood, as if they’re suspended on chains. An adventure to a child can range from the most insignificant event to the most spectacular occurrence.

Some children go through life-altering journeys and are changed, sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse.

Read Eleanor's full essay here.

TY Extended Essay: Tóibín, Keegan, O'Neill

Here's the first of the best Extended Essays written by our Transition Year pupils this year. Click on the years for essays from 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009.

Annika Franz's essay is on Emigration, which she examines through three novels by Irish authors: Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn, Joan O'Neill's Dream Chaser and Gerard Keegan's Famine Diary.

Annika writes:

I chose this topic because I think it has always been a relevant and actual theme in the past as it will be in the future, too. On top of that it is a topic that is mostly relevant for young people, so I am able to make my own opinion about how I would decide at their place. In my opinion it is interesting to see why people want or don´t want to leave their home country, what their dreams, plans, and fears are, and how the beginning of their new lives look like. Besides, I can compare the developing of the stories, find parallels but also huge differences between the three destinies.

Read her full essay here.