Hundreds of entries were whittled to three winners in each fiction, nonfiction and poetry category for this year’s Young Authors Awards in Green River.
Steve Schwartz, Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Young Authors coordinator and English teacher, said they received several hundred entries.
“I am unsure of exactly how many entries there were since the elementary schools judge their own, and then they send me their first through third place winners,” Schwartz said. “I really did appreciate that, since combing through so many entries can be a daunting task to say the least.”
“I believe that there more entries this year than ever before. For example, I received almost 50 entries from sixth-grade alone,” Schwartz said. “I think the reason we had so many entries is because of the other teachers involved. They really stepped up their games, got the world out, and encouraged their students. They are the ones who really made this year happen.”
Both the fiction and nonfiction categories are judged on more than six writing traits, including ideas and content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation. Poetry is judged by ideas and content, organization and fluency, word choice and voice and presentation and mechanics. The number of judges vary every year, there are judges in every elementary school, and five or six judges assess the final scores. Fiction seems to have remained the most popular.
“The quality of writing in Green River is amazing. From story development to conventions, the entries this year show that not only do we have excellent writers in Green River, something we already knew, but that the writing in this district is improving,” Schwartz said. “We’re not sitting still and we are moving forward.”
He said the importance of writing can’t be understated.
“The written word is everything. Whether it is an operator’s manual for a backhoe, or an adventure on another planet, the written world is at the heart of all that we do,” he said. “Every great plan, every great invention, every amazing adventure started with the written word.”
He said even video games begin with a storyboard, which always surprises his students.
“Participation in Young Authors is completely voluntary. However, some teachers have students write papers for a class grade, and then encourage the students to enter the stories; after all, the story is already written, why not enter it?,” Schwartz said. “Also, some teachers offer extra credit for competing in Young Authors.”
For Schwartz, the best part of the program is the celebration.
“Seeing the joy and excitement on the faces of the competitors swells me with pride,” he said.
“These kids put their everything into their entries, and being able to recognize that is the ultimate culmination of everyone’s hard work,” he said.
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