ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS IN WRITING 2008

Entry deadline February 1, 2008

The Achievement  Awards in Writing is a school-based writing program established in 1957 to encourage high school students in their writing and to recognize publicly some of the best student writers in the nation.  The National Council of Teachers of English will give achievement awards in writing to students nominated and cited as excellent writers by judges. Nominees must be students who will graduate from high school in 2009. Click here for 2008 brochure. 

The National Association of Secondary School Principals  has placed this program on the NASSP Advisory List of Student Contests and Activities for 2007-2008.

Only students who are JUNIORS in the academic year 2007-2008 may be nominated for 2008 awards; they must be candidates for high school graduation in 2009.

Nomination Procedures
Each high school selects its own nominee or nominees: one or more juniors agreed upon by the English department, not chosen by an individual teacher.  Home-schooled students may submit through a cooperating school.

In selecting these young writers, teachers shoul to consider the following guidelines:

• Does the student show depth of thought in the quality and presentation of ideas?
• Even if the thought is relatively commonplace, has the student made the idea his or her own?
• Is the student clear about subject and audience?
• Does the student demonstrate a command of vocabulary and sentence structure?

A current official nomination blank for each nominee must be submitted to NCTE, postmarked no later than February 1, 2008. Only one student may be nominated on each form. No substitutions will be accepted after the February 2 deadline. Students cannot nominate themselves. Only teachers can nominate students. All nominations from a school must have the same nominating teacher's name.

All nomination blanks from a school should be mailed to NCTE in the same envelope, and only one teacher should be designated to receive the follow-up instructions in March. All information requested on the nomination blank must be provided.

Number of Nominees
The number of nominees allowed from each school is determined by the current total enrollment in grades 10, 11, 12.

The enrollment figure used must be an official one from administrative reports of the current year and must not include ninth-grade students.

Entries
Two Written Compositions

Impromptu theme written under teacher supervision in no more than 2 hours. The topic is designated by NCTE.

Best writing sample (prose and/or verse) that the student considers his or her best work, regardless of the amount of revision. The "best writing" should not exceed ten typed, double-spaced pages. Research papers, term papers, or novels will not be accepted.

No entries are returned. Teachers or students should make copies of the compositions before submitting the originals. No publication of a student's work will be made without his or her written permission.

Request a Nomination Form
Please provide your school mailing address. Address queries to:

Achievement Awards in Writing
National Council of Teachers of English
1111 W. Kenyon Road
Urbana, IL 61801-1096

or email request to

Achievement Awards 2008 State Coordinators List
The 2008 coordinators list will be available in March, 2008.

You'll need a copy of the latest version of Acrobat Reader to open the brochure and nomination form.  2008 Achievement Awards in Writing Brochure will be available in October. 
The Acrobat Reader download is free from the Adobe web site. If you don't have a copy of Acrobat Reader installed, please download and install the program before clicking on the Nomination Form link.

 
Some linked documents are provided in PDF format and can be viewed using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader program. To download a copy of Adobe Acrobat click here.