Every two weeks I sponsor a writing contest for students in my class who are interested in competing. I do this for a few reasons:
First, I want students to write, and writers only write for two reasons:
Unfortunately, we forget this in elementary school and force children to write about things for which they care very little, and we are then surprised when they don’t enjoy it. If we think about our students as writers and treat them as professionals, then the impetus for writing will grow dramatically. Ideally I want my students to write to be heard, to express their powerful voices, but being paid isn’t so bad either. So your child will have the opportunity to enter many contests this year, and my contest is just one of many.
It also gives your child experience with the format of a typical writing contest, the occasional joy of winning, and the more-common agony of defeat. Rejection is a large part of the writer’s life, and the more accustomed to this unfortunate aspect that your child becomes, the more immune he or she will be later on. I have many, many former students who are constantly contacting me about new contests that they can enter, and I want your child to join this group someday. The prospect of being paid or rewarded in some way for one’s writing is an excellent way to keep your child writing now and in the future.
After all, it’s one of the reasons I write.
Thus my contest was born! I publish guidelines, set a deadline, and wait for the writing to pour in. After I have collected all of the submissions, I pass them onto a group of three judges, teachers and friends of mine, who rank the submissions and return them to me. I tally the rank and determine a winner. The judges change for each contest, and the identity of the writer is concealed from the judges at all times.