Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/97177
Valerie Wiley & Lexi Johnson Class of 1969 Class of 2008 Valerie: Good afternoon. I���m Valerie Wiley, Class of ���69 Lexi: And I���m her daughter, Lexi Johnson, Class of ���08. ���When you earned a comment like, ���Very impressive,��� or ���An excellent read,��� as I finally did on the last paper I wrote for him, it meant a lot.��� ��� Lexi Johnson, Class of 2008 Valerie: I had Dr. D at the beginning of his Latin School career, for ninth and twelfth grade English. Lexi: And I had Dr. D toward the end of his career, for Classical and European Civ, which he team taught with Ms. Dorer. Valerie: When I wrote to my classmates upon hearing the news of his passing, I said what so many others have said: He showed us what it meant to be a scholar; he expected excellence, but was not disappointed with less as long as you did your best; he loved literature. And then I wondered if Lexi had the same impressions of Dr. Dolezal as I did. Lexi: So we decided to go through our old English papers to see if and how Dr. D���s comments had changed over the years. Was he the same as he was back in the ���60s or different? Here are our results based on, of course, a close reading of the text. 30 L AT I N M AGAZINE Valerie: The first thing that struck me was the handwriting ��� that tiny handwriting that was so distinctive and so difficult to read. Lexi: The handwriting was the same, but, as you can see, by my time he used a green pen instead of a red pen. He told us it was ���the color of hope.��� And he also added smiley faces to his repertoire. Valerie: And so many comments! Every page had at least 10 and usually more. Like those questions that weren���t really questions? I got this on a paper about courtly love: ���Val, are you completely satisfied with this as a starting hypothesis?��� Clearly, the correct answer was: no���Even green ink wouldn���t have made that one sound good! Lexi: I think the comments got less pointed, but he still was very particular about the thesis. I see that I got many reminders to ���underline your thesis.��� And then there was the more subtle version: ���I���d emphasize the argument a bit more.��� It was almost a running joke between us, but when I got to college, I knew how to write a thesis-driven essay.