A620 Scholastic Writing Contest Workshop

We have been helping students compose and prepare work for the Scholastic Writing and UIL writing contest since 2016. Our students have gained unprecedented regional and national recognition in the writing contest. 

 

In 2022, our students earned 6 gold keys, 7 silver keys, and 4 honorable mentions in the regional category, as well as a national gold, best-in-grade award (only two are awarded in the entire grade), and national silver. Our center has received the “Scholastic Educator Award.” 

 

In the following two workshops, students discuss, share, and develop their own original works. Our instructors emphasize on completing and polishing works that students are proud to submit.

 

A620_A Scholastic Contest Writing Workshop: Non-fiction, Journalistic, and Academic Writing

 

In this course, we will examine the types of essays that win in the non-fiction categories of the Scholastic Contest, and explore what makes for compelling non-fiction. We will work on developing ideas into essays, learn techniques for impeccable research, craft gripping openings, how to lead readers to an accurate conclusion, and how to write for a general audience. We will also cultivate grammatical and lexical skills, expanding our knowledge of the written English language. Student papers will be given notes for revision with both teacher evaluation and peer reviews to give a broader idea of what works best with a diverse group of readers. 

 

A620_B Scholastic Contest Writing Workshop: Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Writing

 

In this course, we will show young authors and poets how to shape, craft, and revise to help them transmute their imagination into short stories, poems, plays and so on. We will study what Kurt Vonnegut called “The Shape of Stories” and Joseph Campbell called “The Hero’s Journey” to understand how poems and stories follow a specific structure, but that within that structure there are endless variables and possibilities that make each creative writer’s efforts unique. We will work on writing realistic dialogue, contriving compelling plots, and developing meaningful characters, while using apt language and playing with linguistic conventions. Works will be given notes for revisions based on teacher evaluation and peer review to help give an idea of how to write for a broad audience. We will work to polish the stories and poems so they will stand up to the best entries of the Scholastic Writing Contest.