Marjel Visser Award 2024
19 april 2024
Marjel Visser is fondly remembered by the teacher team in the Dual Language Education department as one of the English teachers who set up the DLE department and pioneered the English programme for this form of education. Marjel’s passions were poetry and photography alongside her love of the English language.
In her memory each year, our third year pupils in havo and atheneum study and analyse poetry in English, matching abstract art and/or photography to their piece and completing an analysis of the poem. This year, we were once again overwhelmed by the quality of the poems, their layers of meaning, their clever use of devices and more to the point the use of emotions to really move the reader/audience. These items combined with photos or art work or a hidden message on a frame moved the class teachers emotionally, as well as the jury, comprised of DLE teachers and teachers from the English department.
This year, we had more self-written poetry than ever before, tantamount to the very high level of English in both streams at school. Note-worthy praise goes to the following pupils:
From DLE 3 havo
- Kas for his thought-provoking poem, “The Spikeless Hedgehog”
- Tygo for his beautifully written poem “Sometimes”
- Thijs for his intriguing poem “Do you remember the rain?”
- Finn for his imaginative poem “But an Optical Illusion”
- Linde for her touching poem “Loss”
- Maaido for her inspiring narrative “I’m From”
- Benthe for her uplifting poem “Life”
From DLE 3 atheneum
- Laura for her emotionally powered poem “My Everything”
- Christina for her deep analysis of a poem by Erin Hanson called “Human”.
- Hugo B. for his strong analysis of a poem by Barbara Vance called “Why me?”
- Emma for her analysis of Taylor Swift’s lyrics “Mirrorball”
- Louise for her touching poem and beautiful illustration, “Waves”
- Pepijn for his beautifully written poem “The Light,” which deals with the loss of a loved one.
- Jithe for her reflective poem on life’s challenges in the aptly named poem, “Little Girl”
- Myrthe for her thought-provoking poem “The Sun and the Moon” and our appreciation of what is important in life.
- Vince for his well-written and stunningly presented poem, “The Autumn Tree”
- Rosan for her critical thinking poem, that is so applicable to today’s world, “What is Freedom?”
- Dide for her poem examining the relationships we form and lose as we make our way through life, “When the Seasons Change”.
- Debbie for her compelling poem “Just One More Time”, reminiscing on special moments with those who we have loved and sadly lost.
Choosing winners from such a rich plethora of verse was incredibly difficult, however, our congratulations go to
Maaido, runner up to Kas, who picked up the havo trophy for the Marjel Visser Award 2024
and to Rosan, who was pipped at the post by Debbie to snatch the Marjel Visser Award 2024 for atheneum.
Our congratulations to the whole cohort for their creativity, personal stories and indeed for the goosebumps, we had as jury members working through the excellent work created. Our thanks too go to Mrs. Ekholm and Mrs. Clarkson for their inspiration and drive to enable these creative pupils to delve deep and release these wonderful examples of analysis and poetry- a true testament to the memory of Marjel Visser!
