Three Joel Barlow High School students have won achievement awards for their writing.
Santiago Calderon’s short story, “On Thin Ice,” was chosen by the New England Association of Teachers of English as the winning piece of fiction in the 2020 Annual NEATE Writing Contest for Students.
Santiago’s piece was selected out of nearly 300 works of fiction submitted from students all over New England and will be published in NEATE’s summer 2020 journal, The Leaflet, as well as announced and published in various NEATE forums.
Leyli Ghavami and Kyle Murray each were awarded a Certificate of Superior Writing from the National Council of Teachers of English for their participation in the 2020 NCTE Achievement Award in Writing contest.
Leyli won for her submission, “Sufi ,” and Kyle for his submission, “Compass Rose.” Each submission included two pieces of writing: one theme-based response to the prompt “Why do I write?” and one “best” piece of the student’s choosing.
Barlow English teacher Tim Huminski said you couldn’t find three more deserving students to be recognized for their writing.
“Santiago is always in the writing center, working tirelessly to improve his craft, and Leyli and Kyle are incredible writers,” Huminski said. “They have a richness, sophistication and maturity far behind their years.”
The National Council of Teachers of English Achievement Awards in Writing is a school-based writing program established in 1957 to encourage high school students to write and to recognize some of the best student writers in the nation. Only students who are juniors and who have been nominated by their English teachers may participate.
Because the number of participants allowed from each school is determined by total enrollment, each year the Joel Barlow Writing Center conducts an in-house contest to select two junior class nominees for the national competition. This is the second year in a row that both nominees received Certificates of Superior Writing.
