We’ll step Off the Field to take a closer look at some of the Republic students who are competing in non-sports activities. Our report is brought to you by State Farm Agent Sarah Rader. Talk to her about how you can save money by combining your home and auto insurance.When teachers, students, parents, grandparents, and friends packed the auditorium at Republic High school last week, they weren’t there to watch a school play or a sporting event. They were attending the Republic Writer’s Reception, an event honoring nearly 200 writers in the district who’ve won awards in the past year.
Republic experienced an explosion in the number of winners compared to previous years. Two years ago, the district won 11 awards total. Last year, the number jumped to 32. This year, students (and three teachers) won 188 writing awards: 31 from kindergarten to second grade; 38 from third to fifth grade; and 116 from sixth to 12th grade. Students from every grade level won awards.
Four Republic students won Writers Hall of Fame Awards, given to the best pieces culled from among winners at the LAD Fair, a writing competition through the Southwest Missouri Language Arts Department.
- 7th grade Prose Hall of Fame Awardee, Addison Fanning, “A Dusty Shine”
- 10th grade Nonfiction Hall of Fame Awardee, Miku Nambara, “Measuring Intelligence”
- 12th grade Long Poetry Hall of Fame Awardee, Savana Smith, “Scattered”
- 12th grade Prose Hall of Fame Awardee, Rhianna Borovicka, “Nice Kid”
Two more Republic won Scholastic Gold Keys–the first time anyone from Republic has captured that honor. The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are the oldest and longest-running creative writing awards in the nation. Of 1,200 entries from Missouri, Scholastic awarded 46 Gold Keys, and Republic’s MacKenzie Mansel and Rhianna Borovicka won two of them.
The Writer’s Reception drew about 600 people to the high school auditorium. It featured students from every grade level, and it was designed to highlight their writing.
“The Writer’s Reception itself is a powerful experience. To see the kids faces when their writing is being read aloud … and to hear the little ones announce themselves as writers and authors is such a confidence-boosting experience. Their teachers and their parents are so proud,” says Republic secondary literacy specialist Casey Daugherty. “One parent thanked me for the program … and told me how important it was for the younger sisters of her award-winning writer (a 12th grader) to see him win, and to see all the other students walking across stage. She said they immediately went home and started writing themselves–already wanting to get something to give to their teachers for next year.”
Daugherty believes the process of submitting to contests is good for writers because it allows students to get their writing in front of “authentic audiences.” Part of that effort has been to encourage teachers to submit student writing for competition.
“We reminded teachers that they are already doing incredible work in their classrooms, so we wanted to help them share that with the community,” Daugherty says. “An example–we all know that students write documented essays, a very traditional writing task in a history or English classroom. This year, 80-plus documented essays were submitted to the LAD Fair for seventh and eighth grade, and our eighth graders won seven of the top nine awards in that category.
“Putting student work out there to authentic audiences for critical review and feedback is a validating experience that helps us grow and reflect on our teaching processes. I think the student feels the same rewards and goes through the same reflective processes,” Daugherty says.
Republic’s efforts to encourage and reward writers is only beginning, according to Daugherty. She says teachers are already thinking about ways they can “explore additional writing opportunities” for students, and thinking about ways to make themselves better writers, too.
“There is no other school in our area that I know of that does anything like this to honor students and their writing skills,” Daugherty says. “We hope we can continue the tradition, find ways to sustain it, and lead our future replacements to do the same. It’s so good for the writer’s soul.”