This creative writing contest, coordinated by Peace Corps Volunteers in several countries, is a great way to encourage pupils [forms 6-11] and university students [years 1-4] to use English in a fun and interesting way. Writing will be judged on creativity of ideas more than perfection of mechanics.
For you, getting involved in this project would mean, at the most basic level, holding a "Writing Hour" event between February 14 and 25,
in which all interested students attend and write their answers to an interesting prompt within a sixty-minute time period.
Different prompts will be provided for each age level.
Once these entries are completed, you and a committee of your choice [local English teachers, colleagues, etc] will choose the best entry from each age level, based on a grading rubric that will be provided.
This coordinator, a Peace Corps Volunteer, will help to judge at the oblast level, then forward entries to national competition.
National winners will then be forwarded to international competition.
OBLAST COORDINATORS -
Poltavska - Andrea Zimmerman,
You can find materials here (виберіть рядок безкоштовно)
Hello and thank you for joining us!
ReplyDeleteOther cities who are competing are: Kremenchuk, Lubny, Khorol and Myrhorod.
We just received the writing prompts this week, as well as all of the instructions for the competition from the national organizing committee. Please look at the documents that I have attached and please ask me if you have ANY questions.
In documents, you will see:
- Instructions for school proctors (the person who will conduct the writings with the students.)
- Instructions for the school coordinator (the person who is leading the competition for your schools -- I think that is you!)
- Writing prompts (these are the official writing prompts that the students will use. Please do not let students see the prompts before they will come for the competition)
- lesson plans (You can hold your writing competitions any time between February 14 and February 25, so you have time to do a few fun creative writing lessons in class to help students prepare)
Here is a reminder about the timeline for the competition:
Feb 14-25--* essays written
March 4-- *school winners chosen
March 11--* school winners submitted to oblast coordinators for judging
March 18--* oblast winners chosen, submitted to national judges
April 1--* national winners chosen
April 8--* national winners submitted for international judging
April 18--* international winners announced
I'm hoping that soon we will be able to announce the oblast and national prizes that will be given to the winners.
I know that these instructions might seem complicated. We designed this contest in a traditional American style for an academic competition. When you read the instructions, you will see how we want to emphasize anonymity. We wish to do this so that the contest will be fair for every student during the judging process.
Please feel free to call me at any time if you have questions. When I am teaching, I am not able to answer the phone, but if you send me a text message, I will call you back as soon as I can. Email is also a good method, but I only have access to it when I am at home.
Thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this new competition and I hope your students are able to learn how fun writing can be!
-Andrea Zimmerman
063 593 1625
My students from Shevchenkove (Шевченково), Kharkivs'ka Oblast participated in this contest and we are very excited to see how our school winners do at the Oblast level!
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