Yixuan Wu ’25 knew next to nothing about Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation a year ago.
To compound matters, English is a second language for Yixuan, a junior from the Shaanxi province of China.
And yet the Greenie was recently informed that he has been shortlisted for an award in the John Locke Institute’s Essay Competition. Of the 20,000 essays that were submitted, Yixuan is one of 100 finalists who have been invited to Oxford, England for a Sept. 16 awards dinner.
Yixuan learned about Martin Luther through Christ School’s World History course taught by William Ballenger. He could have chosen any topic for his five-page, 1,500-word essay and submitted it without any review by the faculty. The John Locke Institute later contacted Mr. Ballenger to confirm that Yixuan’s work was his own.