Optional Contest: Saanii Novel Publishing Contest

Contest:  Saanii Publishing

Genre:  novel (memoirs, short story collections, other novel-length entries accepted)

Theme:  Anything goes!

Prize: The winning student will receive a copy of his/her novel in book form

Publication:  Copies of the winning novel will be placed in the Bryant school library as well as Bryant Language Arts classrooms

Odds of winning:  One Bryant Bobcat will win

Last year, Saanii Publishing published the memoir of one of students.  This year, they have opened up the contest to look for another book to publish.  I distributed the permission slip on Friday and approximately twenty students showed interest.  This is one contest we are sure to win, so I will keep you posted!

Optional Contest: Script Frenzy

Contest:  Script Frenzy (brought to you by the creators of NaNoWriMo)

Genre:  Script (movie, TV, stage play, graphic novel, comic book, etc.)

Theme:  Anything you like!

Prize: Serious bragging rights, certificate, extra credit in Ms. Stimpson's Language Arts Class

Publication:  Only if you want to share!

Odds of winning:  Everyone can be a winner!

"Script Frenzy" is a challenge to write a script in thirty days.  A participant may choose any theme and any script-related genre.  This is the first year I will participate, thanks to my husband who convinced me to try it.  I shared the idea with my students and several of them are interested.  This week, I plan to have lunchtime meetings for students who are interested in doing this independently.  (Doing it as a class project would be much to difficult with end-of-the-year testing going on in April).  I would love to have a small group of students to meet occasionally during the month of April to share ideas and support one another.  I have offered extra credit to any student who participates and will award points based on amount and quality of work.

Personally, I am struggling to decide between a movie screenplay and a series of TV scripts.  I have ideas for both.  One thing I am certain of, this writing project I am going to focus on comedy.  I've never tried writing a pure comedy and I think this will be a good opportunity to try my hand at it.  They say comedy is more difficult to write than drama and I believe it.  Here's to writing challenges!

Contest #10: Barnes and Noble

Contest:  Barnes and Noble: "My Favorite Teacher Contest"

Genre:  Essay, poem, or letter (though I am requiring a persuasive essay in preparation for the DWA)

Theme:  How has your favorite teacher inspired you?

Prize: Students: certificate and recognition at a Teacher Appreciation Event at Barnes and Noble

Teachers: cash, gift certificates, books for their classroom, recognition at Teacher Appreciation Event, author visit from Laurie Halse Anderson, a NOOK

Publication:  Winning essays will be bound and presented to the teacher who is the subject of the essay.  Essays may be read aloud at the Teacher Appreciation Events

Odds of winning:  Each Barnes and Noble store will have their own events and will award prizes.  The largest prizes are nation-wide winners.

Okay, okay, this contest may be a little self serving.  Naturally, I hope to be named as my students' "Favorite Teacher."  I'm not requiring that they write about me, though.

Since the "District Writing Analysis" is coming up this week, I have turned this essay contest into a review of the six paragraph persuasive essay.  On Thursday, the eighth graders will sit at the computer and be given a prompt.  They will choose a side and compose a six paragraph essay in response.  This is an untimed test, but students must complete the entire process independently.  I will be comparing this year's scores with last year's as another piece of data about whether or not entering writing contests as improved student test scores.

The students have now finished the essay contest as well as the DWA.  Thanks to help from my student teacher, Emily Primrose, we submitted 37 entries to the Barnes and Noble Essay Contest.  What was really exciting this week, however, was watching the 8th graders take the "DWA," the state-wide writing assessment.  I'm not sure I should disclose the topic of the assessment, but let's just say it was directly related to one of the contests we'd entered and I was pretty excited that the students' had so much to say.  Every single  one of my 8th graders wrote an essay of six paragraphs - some of them even indented their paragraphs which made me weep with joy.  Looking forward to seeing these test scores!  Write on!

Contest #9: Kylie Klein

Contest:  2011 Kylie Klein Writing Competition

Genre:  Essay

Theme:  "If I Could Meet Anyone, It would Be"

Prize:  $100 cash

Publication:  No publication, thus no permission slips.  That makes things a bit easier.  More information at www.kylieklein.com

Odds of winning:  One winner in each state, but only 6th-8th graders are invited to participate.

Kylie Klein is a local author, editor, and public speaker who hosts this contest each year.  She strongly encourages email submissions, so as my students have been finishing their essays, I've been typing them into my own email for submission.  A lot of typing, but not much more work than keeping track of permission slips, etc.

This essay was highly structured: four paragraphs with specific information requested.  This helped students structure their essays and gave us a lot of opportunity to talk about adding detail and specific information.  I required three examples for each paragraph and most students' essays reached the two to three page mark (typed). 

The speed at which students are writing is improving.  The quality of ideas is improving.  Spelling, grammar, punctuation are going through the roof.  Some of my students' handwriting is actually improving, too.  This is by far the best caliber of writing I have ever gotten.  Less griping over the writing portion on the UALPA this year.  Hopefully, those scores will improve - I will keep you posted.

Contest #8: Cesar Chavez

Contest:  Salt Lake City School District's:  2011 Cesar Chavez Creative Expression Art and Language Arts Competition

Genre:  Essay or Poetry (Ms. Pierce will handle the visual arts portion)

Theme:  "Leaders for Justice in our Community and World"

Prize: Certificates, publication, banquet.

Publication:  www.slcschools.org, winning students will be invited to read their work aloud at a celebration

Odds of winning:  ALL participants will receive a certificate for entering - LOVE THAT!

This contest is exclusive to our school district, so it is a much smaller scale.  It's also a topic that is near and dear to my very large Latino population - Cesar Chavez.  Last year, three of my students received honorable mentions in their categories and one student, a student who had been learning English for just six months, had his essay published in a district newsletter.  This contest was a major influence in my decision to take on this project this year.  My students enjoyed participating in this contest and were so excited that we had winners and got certificates.

Because of the overlapping time frames with the "ICE" contest, we had to knock this one out in just four days.  I am so proud to say that every single one of my students wrote a rough draft and typed their final draft.  All but one student had their essays submitted to the contest.  

Last Friday, I drove the ICE submissions to the National Energy Foundation and the Cesar Chavez submissions to the school district.  It was hectic pulling them all together on the same day and running them around town, but it was fun.  The students are getting better at this process and I'm getting more organized about it, too.  They groan every time I mention a new contest, but there is less and less dragging of feet to get them done.  The quality of writing is, of course, improving, too.  

Shout out to Jody Brings and Emily Pierce who had their students participate in the challenge as well.  Emily and I share many students, so there were several who did art and essay submissions.  Special thanks to my assistant, Carol Kelly, for helping glue and paperclip all the entry forms to the essays.

This next week is the UALPA, the state English test for English Language Learners.  I can NOT wait to see how their writing scores improve.  We also have two more writing contests coming up with deadlines just three days apart.  With testing and two contests, I've been debating if I'm taking on too much by trying to do both contests.  Since I'm still just working with one class of twelve students, I've decided to take it on.  Why not?  Maybe someone will win a fabulous prize!

Contest #7: Igniting Creative Energy

Contest:  National Energy Foundation Igniting Creative Energy National Student Challenge

Genre:  Project can take any form and must include a one-page explanation

Theme:  Explore new and creative ways to conserve energy and water.  Communicate those ideas to others.

Prize:  Grand prize is a trip to D.C.

Publish:  http://www.ignitingcreativeenergy.org/guidelines1.html

Odds of winning:  One middle school winner in all of United States and Canada

I did this challenge two years ago after a major conservation unit.  The unit went well, but the challenge didn't go as well.  I didn't structure it very well and most students didn't complete a project.  This time around the unit was much much shorter (spending most of our time doing other writing contests) but the challenge went better.  Again I had twelve students participating; six of them completed the entire challenge and submitted to the contest.  These students will receive certificates at our school awards assembly.

After we finished our projects, we took a field trip to the city landfill and took a tour.  It was a great field trip and they had tons of projects displayed in their classroom.  The students were inspired and had lots of ideas for projects after we left.  Next year, I will take the students to the landfill before I assign the project.  I think they will have more ideas and be inspired to work on bigger and better projects.  I must say that I was proud of my students on the tour.  They were upset at the large amounts of recyclable materials they could see in the landfill and it did inspire them to communicate what they had learned to friends and families.  I think my class of twelve will do a school project, although it will be too late for the contest.

This is a contest I want to try and do every year.  My students seem to really like conservation as a topic and I have a lot of materials to teach through a grant I participated in.  This challenge is a great culmination to the unit, if I can ever make it all work together . . .

Contest #6: Do the Write Thing Challenge

Contest:  Utah's Eleventh Annual Do the Write Thing Challenge

Genre:  Essay or poem

Theme:  The impact of youth violence in our community and what can be done about it.

Prize:  Certificates, publication, recognition luncheon, two student from Utah will win a trip to D.C.

Publication:  Booklet of essays available at www.juvenile.utah.gov (top essays will be published and placed in the Library of Congress

Odds of winning:  12 winners in the state of Utah

I had students participate in this challenge about three years ago.  I had three students receive honorable mention, which included a certificate signed by the governor.  

In January, I had a student teacher take over the majority of my classes, so I had only fourteen students participate in the challenge this year.  It was very difficult as it was a topic that hit close to home for most of them.  We read a lot of examples, had a lot of discussion, and I brought in a guest speaker from the Colors of Success program to help.  One student said, "C'mon, Stimpson, give us any other topic and we'll write it.  This one is just too hard."  That comment made me realize how important it was for us to keep going and with the project.

During the last week of the challenge, the Arizona shooting happened.  On a day I was absent, my assistant, Stephanie Hunt had the magic words to unlock their pens.  They wrote about the tragic shooting, they wrote about their own lives, they wrote about how they could be voices against violence in their communities, in the hallways, in their essays.  

Only about seven students actually brought signed permission slips, but I feel extremely confident that some of them will receive some recognition.  Their essays are heartbreaking and beautiful.  

This one was a real bonding experience for all of us.  I appreciate the adult help I got on this one.