Organizer Amanda McCulloch, an English teacher at Mac, created the contest to spark the interest of students in all grades who love to write and love a good challenge.
The contest saw students writing 1000 word stories – but that’s just where the challenge began. Each round, students were assigned a random genre, subject, and character. To make it even more challenging, they only had one week to write, edit, and submit their work.
Imagine being assigned criteria like an interview, a doctor, and the genre of a fairy tale- or perhaps scuba diving and a photographer, in the style of science fiction! As you can imagine, students were asked to draw upon all of their creative abilities to make it through each round.
The submissions were judged for their overall adherence to the required criteria, writing mechanics, and were scored on a scale ranging from Very Weak (Plot? What’s a plot?) to Amazing (This story could and should be published). For each round, a variety of teachers and support staff at Macdonald High participated in the judging process. The judges were required to provide positive and constructive feedback after each submission.
The first round of the contest saw 35 students across all grade levels participate. The second round had 12 students who were assigned all new genres, subjects, and characters. Lastly, six students moved onto the final round where they all received the same requirements: Open genre, eavesdropping, and a waiter/waitress. For the final round, judges from outside the school participated including Carol Heffernan, Assistant Director General at LBPSB and Sarah Simon, Team Leader for Evaluation Secondary 5 English Language Arts at the Ministry of Education.