Three US Students Win Regional Writing Awards

Three upper school students recently earned Regional Scholastic Awards for excellence in writing. 

 

“The English department is very proud of the students who submitted work  to the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards,” said Department Chair Sharon Wendler. 

 

Over 250,000 submissions are received each year, with the top 15 percent of regional submissions earning Honorable Mention Awards and the top 10-15 percent being recognized with Silver Key Awards.

 

Sophomores Lizzy Davies and Madeline Barakett earned Silver Key awards in the poetry and personal essay/memoir category, respectively. Freshman Anabelle Persson received an Honorable Mention in the dramatic script category. 

 

Next year, writing categories will include the following: Critical Essay, Dramatic Script, Flash Fiction, Journalism, Humor, Novel Writing, Personal Essay & Memoir, Poetry, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Short Story, and Writing Portfolio (graduating seniors only).  

 

“It's never too early to start a next project,” said Wendler. 

 

Madeleine Barakett submitted a personal essay.  She shared, "I wrote my story ‘Funeral Flowers’ to demonstrate the way death exposes and reveals our humanity; hardship exposes the rawest human emotion even. This was based on a conversation with my Dad after my little brother died. The story is an attempt to marry the first stage of grief with a coming of age in which the humanity of my dad was revealed to me. The memoir focuses on a conversation between the narrator and her father about her recently passed younger brother, Gabriel. I chose the name Gabriel as a biblical allusion to the angel Gabriel and his representation of understanding and acceptance. I utilized dramatic irony to demonstrate denial as Dad tells the protagonist about the contents of his and Gabriel's day while both the reader and narrator know that Gabriel is dead. In simpler terms, her father is in denial of Gabriel’s death. The story also doubles as a bildungsroman as the protagonist attempts to preserve the blissful ignorance of her father by keeping herself from correcting him. Furthermore, by doing so, she denies continuing in her innocence and recognizes that parents grieve too.”

 

 

Lizzy Davies submitted a poem which  “offers a challenging perspective on the Garden of Eden. As a girl who attended catholic school for twelve years, the Garden of Eden was commonly an oversimplified story that did not provide a clear answer for the hate and evil in our world. As I advanced into a higher theology class, our teacher offered us a final assignment to express an aspect of our religion that challenged us or something about which we had a unique perspective. I wanted to express my confusion about the blame placed on Eve for our world's imperfections, and perhaps offer a new perspective to the reader.”

 

 

Anabelle Persson submitted a dramatic script which features a “protagonist who is a young teenager named Luke. Luke struggles with managing his type 1 diabetes as he is growing up and has to learn to take more responsibility in his life. One day, on an average day, Luke's sassy younger sister, Karla, vanishes out of plain sight. Luke is overwhelmed with these feelings of guilt as he was the one who saw his sister last. The story begins with Luke starting to look for his sister with a new found sense of maturity. The story reflects on the struggle of managing many responsibilities as a teenager and what the consequences could be."