In AP English Language and Composition, students spend the year studying how and why people write. Once the AP exam is behind them, Leo Bickelhaupt gives them one last rhetorical situation: write about a person who has survived something difficult. The result is The Road to Survival, the fourth volume of OWL’s survival journal: 50 essays that blend personal narrative with research. Some are about the writers themselves, some about friends and family, and some about people they have never met.

The essays are organized into seven sections (Outdoors, Disasters, History, Physical, Psychological, Social, and Family) and range from rip currents, wilderness trips, and summer storms to a house fire, sports injuries, immigration enforcement, mental health, and family stories.

Over interim, a team of students turned the essays into a 148-page illustrated book. Claire designed the layout, Halie, Kate, and Rahnia copyedited all 50 essays (twice), and Aria, Remy, and Isabelle created the artwork. Printing was made possible by OWL’s PTO and donors to a GoFundMe. To hear about the process in the editors’ own words, turn to page 146.

Read the full journal below.