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!
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!
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