The Excitement of Contests

Excerpt from Classroom Publishing: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Student Literacy:

Entering writing contests can be a good vehicle for motivating students to do their best writing and revising. There are many kinds of writing competitions, and perhaps the most fruitful ones are those that actually publish students’ work.

Janis Cramer leads her 10th–12th grade creative writing students in Bethany, Oklahoma through a process of writing children’s books, beginning with a critique of children’s books, and culminating with students entering the Landmark contest. The Landmark organization publishes the books of winning students each year. Janis uses Written & Illustrated by… the guide to writing for this contest written by David Melton. Janis finds this guide to be helpful, although she thinks it underestimates the amount of time the different stages will take.

Her students do an excellent job. One year, with 7,500 entries across the nation, she had one student place in the top ten in the oldest age group category and five placed in the top one hundred. “My kids are very competitive with each other, and they also motivate each other in a lot of ways. They cannot stand for someone else to do a better job. On the other hand, they are extremely proud of each other’s product.”

Janis’ interpretation of the Landmark process strikes a careful balance of collaborative and individual work.

1. Critique — Students critique three children’s books. Students use the elementary school library to look for a good, average, and poor book to write about. They look at the art, style, plot, character development, and the book jacket. They do this to sharpen their own writing as well as to develop an eye for what book companies are looking for.

2. Pre-writing: Telling the Story — In their writing groups, the students first tell each other their stories. “It becomes a collaborative effort,” Janis explains, “because they just come up with the basic ideas, and then they get so many new ways to change and add to their stories from their groups.”

3. The Rough Draft — Janis agrees that if students have to write their stories in a short amount of time, they will be more creative. In fact, she has her students write rough drafts in one period! You may wish to keep to this time frame with your students, or you may want to allow them to have more time. When students write their rough drafts, they also draw sketches of their main characters and these are displayed so students can discuss them.

4. Revising — Students work on drafts with their writing groups. They then use the word processor, and revise and edit again, this time with the aid of new editing groups. The next stage is printing the story, cutting, and doing the layout on big sheets of paper. “They read each other’s books and write rave reviews for each other that go on the actual book cover.”

5. Artwork and Binding — “Students must do their own art work, which,” says Janis, “is a problem for some of the kids. This year I’m going to have the art teacher work with them. The books are hardbound, and they use the cardboard that comes off the backs of art tablets. After covering the cardboard with construction paper, they sew their books together with needle and thread.

6. Older Students Read to the Younger Ones — In contrast to other projects involving writing books for children, Janis only has some students go to the elementary school to read their books. The elementary teachers select the books they want read, and it is a special honor for students to be chosen.

7. Celebration — “We have a cookie and punch reception in the library which is filled with family, friends, high school teachers, and elementary school teachers. We make a poster of each kid, taking information and reviews off their book jackets. All the books are spread out on the tables for everyone to look through. The students gain a certain amount of fame, which is good, because my creative writing kids don’t usually get a lot of recognition.”
Some of these Mustang High School students achieve further recognition in the community. The Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English February 1992 newsletter announced that the students were available to go to other schools to read their books and explain how they made them.


*Copyright © 1992 by Laurie King & Dennis Stovall. Published by Blue Heron Publishing, Inc. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.