Congratulations to Elena Frattaroli, winner of this year's Cambridge School of Dallas Senior Tutorial competition with her paper "Victor Hugo's Waterloo: Focal Point of Les Miserables."

Senior Tutorial is the capstone of the curriculum at The Cambridge School of Dallas and a requirement for graduation.  Its purpose is to provide students with an occasion to study a topic in depth, write a rigorous academic paper on that topic, and present and defend the thesis of that paper publicly before an academic committee.  This year's three finalists were:

• Maddy Chance, "Biological Weapons: Unjust and Morally Wrong"

• Elena Frattaroli, "Victor Hugo's Waterloo: Focal Point of Les Miserables" 

• Parker Smith, "Law, Morality and Human Flourishing" 

The Senior Tutorial begins in the student’s junior year. Following the Tutorial finals each April, the work begins with juniors for next year’s tutorials. Students select an area of research and faculty recommend reading for them. Over the summer, they will read widely and deeply in their selected area. At the beginning of their senior year, the students turn in an annotated bibliography and begin working individually with a faculty tutor to develop a substantive, defensible thesis statement. After much writing, additional research, rewriting, meetings with their faculty tutors, and some careful thinking along the way, the students turn in a 15 page defense of their thesis. After the paper is submitted, the questioning process begins. The final draft of the paper is sent to the semi-finalist judges. The judges read the Tutorial papers, develop objections and questions, and give the students a chance to answer questions and objections publically. Three students are chosen to go before a second academic committee in the finalist round, where an outside committee of distinguished judges selects the winner. 

For more information on the Cambridge School of Dallas, see the website (www.cambridgedallas.org) or call 214-357-2995.