Young Authors’ Contest

Young Authors Contest

Francesca Testen, In-Focus Editor, Cartoonist

Each year, Urbana High students have the opportunity to participate in the State of Maryland International Reading Council Young Author’s Contest. SoMIRAC’s contest is open to all Maryland school students in grades 2 through 12.

High schoolers are required to write between eight hundred and two thousand words for a short story and between twenty five and three hundred for a poetry submission. According to the Young Author’s Writing Rubric on SoMIRAC’s website, the judges evaluate a work on ideas and development, voice, word choice, grammar, punctuation, and several other criteria.

Ms. Connelly, a UHS English teacher, is the school level coordinator for the contest. For the judging Connelly and a panel of several teacher judges from different departments read the submitted
poems and short stories. The judges then select one poem and story to send to the county level. Creative writing pieces are selected from all over Frederick County, where one short story and one poem will be selected by Frederick County’s State of Maryland International Reading Association Council to be submitted to the state contest…. (To read the rest of this story, pick up a copy of The Hawkeye from the newsstand near the front office or the media center)