Maija Rembold’s horse Red gives English 12 teacher Heather Motter a kiss during Rembold’s passion presentation. (By Bo Myers/Student contributor)
Devin Erwin presents his passion of riding dirt bikes. (By Bo Myers/Student contributor)
Dylan Lu shares his passion presentation. (By Nick Richar/Student contributor)
By NATALIE SANDROCK
Student contributor
The passions people develop over time are not only important in the moment, but are crucial to maintaining a healthy mindset into adulthood. Cranberry High School’s senior English class has worked toward encouraging students to incorporate their passions into their future careers through a passion presentation project.
On Sept. 9, the senior class began their passion presentations. In these presentations, seniors are allotted five to forty minutes to elaborate on a topic that they are passionate about and how their passion relates to what they plan to do following high school or college, or how it will help them in their adult life.
Passion presentations are a 10-year-old tradition of the graduation project, meaning that every senior at Cranberry has had to complete this project to meet the requirements of graduation for the past decade.
12th-grade English teacher and supervisor of the senior project, Heather Motter, is the mastermind behind these presentations. Before Motter took command of the senior projects, students would have to present their future career to a panel of teachers.
In the words of Motter, this new version of the presentation “really helps the students to connect with each other.” Motter went on to explain that students receive this assignment “incredibly well.”
This part of the graduation requirements doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Motter says she has previously had students e-mail her, even over summer break, about the subject matter they can cover for their passion presentation.
Passion presentations have managed to not only become a required part of senior year at Cranberry, but also a loved one cherished by each graduate of Cranberry High School.
Natalie Sandrock, Bo Myers, and Nick Richar are students at Cranberry High School and members of Cranberry Chronicles, the school’s journalism/publications class.
