【推荐2】When I was 13, my only purpose was to become the star on our football team. That meant ________ Miller King, who was the best player at our school.

Football season started in September and all summer long I worked out. I carried my football everywhere for ________ . Just before September, Miller was hit by a car and lost his right arm I went to see him after he came back from ________ He looked very pale, but he didn’t cry. That season, I ________ all of Miller’s records while he watched the home games from the bench. We went 10-1 and I was named most valuable player, ________ I often had crazy dreams in which I was to blame for (负有责任) Miller’s ________

One afternoon, I was crossing the field to go home and saw Miller stuck going over a fence-which wasn’t ________ to climb if you had both arms. I’m sure I was the last person in the world he wanted to accept ________ from. But despite that challenge he accepted. I helped him move slowly over the fence. When we were finally ________ on the other side, he said to me, “You know, I didn’t tell you this during the season, but you did ________. Thank you for     ________ me.”

His words freed me from my bad ________ . I thought to myself, how even without an arm he was more of a leader. He was ________ ahead of me. I was right to have ________ him. From that day on, I grew ________ and a little more real.

【推荐3】Every year I’d read over 2,000 college applications from students all over the world. It is quite _______ to choose whom to admit. _______, in the chaos of SAT scores and recommendations, one _______ is always irresistible in a candidate: kindness.

The most surprising _______ of kindness I’ve ever _______ came from a student who had excellent scores and a supportive recommendation from his college counselor (顾问). Even with these qualifications, he might not have _______. But one letter of recommendation caught my eye. It was from a school security _______. Letters of recommendation are typically written by people like former presidents, celebrities, and Olympic athletes.

The security guard wrote that he supported this student’s admission because of his _______. This young man was the only person in the school who knew the names of every member of the guard staff. He turned off lights in empty rooms, consistently _______ the hallway monitor each morning and tidied up the classroom after his peers left school ________ nobody was watching. This student, the security guard wrote, had a(n) ________ respect for every person at the school, regardless of position, popularity or power.

It gave us a ________ onto a student’s life in the moments when nothing “counted”. That student was admitted by unanimous (一致的) vote of the admissions committee.

Next year there might be a flood of security guard recommendations ________ this essay. But if it means students will start paying as much ________ to the people who clean their classrooms as they do to their principals and teachers, I’m happy to help start that ________.

【推荐1】The other day a big, ugly, black bat found its way to my bathroom. I am what is known as “the man of the house”, so it was my _________, in fact my manly duty, to rid the house of the _________ creature.

Being a man does not _________ die fact that I am extremely _________ of bats. All men, I think, sometimes have had that feeling of being _________ in some male role. Sometimes it is something as simple as having to _________ that you know something about car engines when the car won’t start. But sometimes the trap is a(n) _________ one. Many men prefer to be something different from what society _________ men should be. What these men want is the _________ to be what they want to be.

As I came towards the frightening bat, I __________ what would happen if I had simply told my wife that I wouldn’t do it. But I couldn’t do that! I __________ opened the window, carefully lifted a broom and swept the bat out of the __________.

My wife __________ and my son thought I was __________. They rid of the bat, I started to tell them — but then __________. A man doesn’t talk of such things.

【推荐2】On a Friday evening in December, two weeks before Christmas, I lost my job. When my daughter, Kristil, then 12, and I planned to get our Christmas tree, I listened to my voicemail: “We’re sorry but your work _______ has ended today. ”My heart sank. As a single parent, my anxiety _______.

The next day as we searched for the tree, I _______ to be cheerful as I eyed each price tag(标签).

“Is everything OK? ” Kristil asked. ”You seem worried. ”

“I got some bad news yesterday,” I told her. ”I lost my job.”

I eagerly _______ job as my bank account became smaller. I felt as if the world was closing in on me.

One afternoon, I dropped Kristil in a wealthy community for a birthday party. I watched as she went in, _______ with all the nice things we couldn’t afford. I drove home _______. Back at home, I glanced out the window. It had been snowing _______ all morning. I noticed a slim woman trying to open her car door _______ the wind. As she got out, I realized it was my old professor, Sister Esther Heffernan. I’d first met her 10 years earlier when I was her student at Edgewood College. Kristil was 3 at that time, and I sometimes took her to class. Such was Sister Esther, a(n) _______professor. When I was busy with lessons, she would ________ coloring books to occupy Kristil.

“Well, I called last week but couldn’t get through. ________, I thought I would come by.” Sister Esther said. “I have gifts for you and Kristil.”

I made her a cup of tea, and we talked. Being in Sister Esther’s ________ gave me hope that things would be all right. I opened her card as she ________. Hundred-dollar bills fell onto the table. I gasped ________, tears of gratitude streaming down my face. Sister Esther had given me $1, 000.

On Christmas Eve, I ________ watched as Kristil opened her gifts. In 2020, at age 91, Sister Esther died, but the love she gave during her life lives on in the hearts of many. I am lucky to be one of them.

【推荐3】“What kind of stuff do you write?” one student asked on my first day at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. After a decade away from the classroom, I was back to ________.

“Creative non-fiction,” I said.

It was a ________. I couldn’t remember when I’d last written a creative essay. It must have been before my volatile (喜怒无常的) mother fell ill, leaving me resigned to the idea that our story of family dysfunction would not end happily. It seemed that nothing I wrote could ________ that.

With too much time and lack of ________, I accepted a position to teach creative non-fiction.

Although I couldn’t get myself to tell my own stories, I could require that my students tell theirs.

“You’re going to be keeping a journal in this class,” I said. “And I want you to tell your stories like they ________.”

“Why?” a boy named Michael asked. “I mean, who ________ about our stories?”

Looking out at the roomful of students, I realized I didn’t have an answer.

No one said a word. I ________ that most didn’t know their stories were stories—as beautiful and hard—as their own lives.

Finally, I said, “Because it’s what you have. Stories allow us to make meaning of what we’ve been through. When you shape your experience into a story, it becomes yours and not just something that happened to you.”

Michael didn’t look ________ , but he didn’t challenge me either.

In his first essay, Michael wrote about how he grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in Boston. He wrote about the night he was out with two friends:

The feeling of numbness (麻木) shot through my body as a car came zooming towards us. At that moment everything went blank. Both of my two mates were hit down, drenched in blood. Minutes after I witnessed that, I decided I was leaving the dangerous neighborhood and going to college.

He went on to write about how his high school teachers, who saw his ________ , helped him get into this school.

I had Michael read his essay out. After he finished, the class went so ________ that we could hear the sound of each other’s breath. After a moment, I said, “That’s why you tell your stories.”

I went home that night and picked up my journal, dusty and untouched. I found a pen and for the first time in months, I had to write.