SITS believes in working with our youth now in order to affect their futures. Our club maintains a focus on literacy through our Summer Reading Program and our On Your Way Awards as we celebrate our elementary school youth. We also celebrate writing with our annual Writing Festival. The STMS language arts department prepares writing prompts for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. This writing assignment takes place in January. Read 180 and High Point program also participate. Upon completion, the teachers complete the initial evaluation and then pass the best writing entries along to our Soroptimist Writing Festival Judges. This year as always, the judges read and rated each of the writing entries submitted and pared down the entries to determine a first, second and third place winner in each of the 5 categories. These 15 winners and 2 guests of their choice were invited to our Writing Festival Breakfast and Celebration today. It was a wonderful morning to celebrate the writing of these students, to hear their essays, and to give them each a small monetary award in honor of their accomplishment. The language arts teachers and STMS administration also joined us for this exciting morning.
After a delicious breakfast, Wendy David and Sandy Williams opened our awards ceremony by introducing our winning writers.
The 7th graders read their winning entries first. Their writing prompt was on the subject of “privacy versus national security”. The winners were as follows:
7th Grade Read 180
1st Place- Brandon Hernandez
2nd Place- Karina Ibarra
3rd Pace- Andrea Cortez
7th Grade
1st Place-Christopher Guerrero
2nd Place- Jack Bray
3rd Place- Jack Rich
7th Grade Honors
1st Place- Destiny Hursh
Judges Award
Myliana Blanchard
Next the 8th graders read their winning entries. Their writing prompt was on the subject of who should be “the next female presidential candidate”.
8th Grade
1st Place- Jeffrey Flynn
2nd Place- Sequoia Hill
3rd Place- Hannah Lucas
8th Grade Honors
1st Place- Eliana Carney
Congratulations to all of these student authors! It was wonderful to hear our youth and their thoughts about the world around them. Keep writing!!!