What follows is an essay I wrote for my students in the last week of my classroom teaching career. It’s intended to work on three levels: First, I delivered it as a speech, so it should have a relatively easy rhythm to be read and understood aloud. Second, it should stand alone and feel complete with just the main text. Third, it, of course, has footnotes; so the writing voice should be more fully developed and the reading experience more complete when read with the footnotes.
