Middle School Writing Contest

A Job Well Done – Literacy in the Community

Middle school students from around Osceola County excitedly gathered with their parents and teachers at the Hart Memorial Library on Wednesday, May 20 to learn the results of the Middle School Writing Contest. Forty-five students from five different middle schools in Osceola County submitted stories 500 -1,000 words in length choosing from the following topics: Treasures, An Amazing Pet Tale, A Scary Place, and The Worst/Best Day of My Life. Participating schools were Celebration K-8, Denn John Middle School, Kissimmee Middle School, Saint Cloud Middle School, and Osceola County School for the Arts. The contest was sponsored by the Osceola Chapter of the Florida Writers Association, One Word at a Time Writers.
Three judges from One Word at a Time read each story evaluating the stories on plot, setting, character, punctuation, grammar, originality, and appearance. They selected first, second, and third place winners from each school and four overall best stories.
One Word at a Time appreciates this opportunity to once again partner with the Osceola Library System, Friends of the Library Foundation, and Osceola County Schools to make this competition possible. It is our way of promoting literacy in the community. Friends of the Library Foundation donated a thesaurus, pens, and inspirational books to the finalists. This year we were also thankful that the Florida Writers Foundation was able to provide five $15 checks to award to the first place winners. Other prizes included inspirational books provided by One Word at a Time members. Thank you to the Hart Memorial Library for providing the auditorium for the awards ceremony.


As president of One Word at a Time, I would like to personally thank the teachers at each of the schools – Lisa Iriarte - Celebration K-8, Nilda Correa - Kissimmee Middle School, Barbara Robinson -Denn John Middle School, Shelly Justice - Osceola County School for the Arts, Holly McCoy -Saint Cloud Middle School. They helped coordinate the competitions within the schools, and distributed the stories to me. The competition would not have been possible without the volunteer efforts of the judges Patricia Semler, Tina Sallee, and Robert Cherney who dedicated many hours reading, scoring, and writing comments on all the submitted stories. Thanks to Larraine Stacey who designed the flyer and helped in the planning of the competition. A special thanks to Pat Semler, Mike Fenton, Marni Dandliker, and Mr. Dandliker for setting up the room for the celebration event, handing out the awards, and staying to clean up after. Photographs were provided by Mike Fenton.

Writers - CONGRATULATIONS for a job well done!
FIRST PRIZE – “The House Across the Street” by Eric Qu, Celebration K-8; “The Treasures of My Heart” by Isabel Ascobar, Denn John Middle; “Does He Love Me Too?” by Salma Belakbir, Kissimmee Middle; “What” by Cheina Ramos, Osceola County School for the Arts; “The House” by Claire Polachek, Saint Cloud Middle.
SECOND PRIZE –Tie “Best Day Ever” by Alexandra Lousey, Celebration K-8; “My Year as a Celebration All Star” by Mike La Gaipa, Celebration K-8; “DeShawn’s Strange Treasure” by Jovenal Pierre, Denn John Middle; Tie “The Treasure of my Dreams” by Jean Carlos Batista, Kissimmee Middle School; “The Worst Day Of My Life” by Tiffany Rodriguez, Kissimmee Middle School; “A Miracle In the Middle of No Where” by Amylee Rivera, Osceola County School for the Arts; “Training Pays Off” by Stephanie Baur, Saint Cloud Middle.
THIRD PRIZE – “The Worst Day Of My Life” by Saarah Samad, Celebration K-8; “The Best Day Of My Life” by Kyndall Camacho, Denn John Middle; “The Fairy Tale Treasure” by Bakhadir Rozakberdiev, Kissimmee Middle School; “The Circus” by Emanuela Pava, Osceola County School for the Arts;; “Spot the Fire Dog” by Hanna Pugh, Saint Cloud Middle.
BEST OVERALL – Scored on total points with a perfect score 63. Winners will have stories included in an anthology by One Word at a Time.
1st “The House” by Claire Polochek, Saint Cloud Middle – 58 points
2nd “The House Across the Street” by Eric Qu, Celebration K-8 – 56 points
3rd “Training Pays Off” by Stephanie Baur, Saint Cloud Middle – 55 points
4th “Does He Love Me Too?” by Salma Belakbir, Kissimmee Middle – 54 points

Middle School Writing Contest, other news

Welcome once again to our blog. I've been extremely busy planning and implementing our group's second Middle School Writing Competition. We approached teachers and literacy department heads at Kissimmee Middle School, Celebration K-8 School, School for the Arts, Saint Cloud Middle School, and Denn John Middle School who agreed to get the word out to their students to participate.

The students were given four topics to choose from for a 500-1000 word short story. Flyers with the instructions were distributed at the schools on March 30. I extended the deadline until Friday, April 17 because spring break is this week for our county and many of the youth may be away.

Our next challenge is to read and judge the stories and plan the awards ceremony. I would like to display the stories at the Library for about a month like we did last time. We will choose a first, second, and third place winner from each school. Each winner will be presented with a certificate of acheivement and a prize. The ceremony will be held May 8th at the Hart Memorial Library in Kissimmee at 6:00 p.m. after the Literacy in the Arts event. There will be refreshments provided and the first place winners will be asked to read their stories. (or someone will read them if they are too shy).

We are seeking contributions and suggestions for prizes, certificates, certificate frames, help in decorating the display board at the library.

We want to thank the Friends of the Library who is helping to organize the recognition event, providing refreshments, and donating prizes. We also want to thank all the teachers who participated in helping their students prepare for this and in getting the word out for us. I also want to thank anyone who has volunteered to read and judge the stories. Through all your efforts we are contributing to literacy in the community by reaching out to youth and emphasizing the importance of the written word in a fun way for them.

Exciting Goals

We received nearly fourteen New Year surveys back from our One Word at a Time writers. It was fun sharing them with everyone who attended the January meeting. Nearly everyone responded that they would like to pursue the goal of compiling some of our members pieces for an anthology. The stories should be for a children's audience ages 5-10 and possibly include animal characters. Upon publication, we hope to distribute to local stores and libraries among other markets.

Many members also agreed to speak, teach, or present at the meetings. Other interests included "open mic" readings, writing contests, field trips to writers events.

Another interest was an email critique group. This has already been established. Anyone wishing to participate needs to contact me and I'll give you the details.

Other news: The 'Osceola Friends of the Library' has asked our local FWA group to sponser another writing contest for children. We will be partnering with them and the Osceola County Library System. The planning meeting for this will be in February. Interested volunteers should contact me and I will email you back with the meeting date/time.

Vicki announced Rollins College Winter Writer Events in January/ February on Thursday evenings. Here are the dates. Poet, Brigid Pegeen Kelly (January 29); poet playwright, Derek Walcott (February 5); novelist, Margot Livesey (February 12); poet, Billy Collins (February 19).

See you at our February 12, Osceola FWA meeting. Jerri

Writing News & September Meeting

First I want to welcome Bob Cherny, Mary Russell who attended the August meeting and Colleen Dilmore who attended the July meeting. Bob has a fascination for science fiction and fantasy. He has several stories he'd like to get published. Mary is presently focusing on non-fiction devotional and self-help. Colleen loves to write Children's fiction. I hope you all enjoyed the meeting where we all read and critiqued some sample writing.

This month, September, Vicki Riley-Fischer, came up with a poetry writing activity. The excercise focuses on writing using the senses. Everyone needs to bring a writing pad, scissors and a pen. We also need scotch tape (I'll bring) and a timer.

Now for some writing news.

I got an email from Karen J. Maan, kmaan@spalding.edu, announcing a Master of FineArts in Writing Program at Spalding University. The degree consists of a 4 semester course of study at the University in Louisville, KY. For more information visit the website @ www.spalding.edu/mfa or email mfa@spalding.edu. 800-896-8942 ext 2423.

Check out the August NCC Midnight Newsletter. I will forward it to the Osceola members. NCC Midnight hosts Screenplay and writing contests. It also has an intense workshop for screenwriters and other writers.

Beginning soon with FWA there will be a new members only online social networking site. It will allow all members to have their own place similar to MySpace or Facebook but it will be private and opent to FWA Members only. This will not replace the FWA website. I'm going to check it out. I will let you know more about it at the meeting.

Reminder to all the Osceola FWA members and others who attend the One Word at a Time monthly meetings---Let Vicki and me know when you want to present to the group or arrange a speaker and what the subject will be. Come on everybody. This is your group by participating you ensure that you get what you want out of it.

Currently we have these plans:
September , Poetry writing excercises focus on writing sensory details.

October Pat Semler- and possibly Cal Tyrell a local poet lariat.

November we will need to move the meeting date from the 2nd Thursday to the 1st Thursday because of a conflict with the FWA Writer's Conference on the day after our normal meeting time. If anyone wants to present, or has any ideas for that meeting let me know. I'd like everyone who writes longer fiction to participate in nanowrimo. (I think I have that correct). I'll get you the website address later. November is national novel writers month and there is a challenge to write 50,000 in a months time to jumpstart novel ideas.

In December we can review how the year went for each of us as individuals and as a group. What we want to emphasize in the coming year. If someone wants to present, let me know.

January- Eliz wants to present.

Joe Iriarte keeps his challenge open for everyone to get 3 rejections, or notification of publication, by December. Gifts will be awarded at the December meeting.

If anyone knows how to post links to this blog, I need instruction on that.