Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Seeking topic suggestions for writing contest

HEROES is seeking suggestions for a theme for next year's Writing Talent Search.

WRITING TALENT SEARCH FORMAT

The concept of the Writing Talent Search is to have middle school and high school students write a college level paper that is graded by college instructors using the same standard that they use for their freshmen English students. It's based on the concept of using above grade testing that's employed by more traditional talent searches that have 7th graders take the SAT.

For the first Writing Talent Search students had to write an essay. (see www.TalentSearch.HEROESgifted.com) For next year we would like to allow them to be able to choose between writing an essay or other forms of writing such as poem, short story, drama or research paper. The essays are graded by the Associate Director of the Rutgers University Writing Program. We are still working on suitable experts to grade other types of writing.

In order to validate the individual's writing skills we require that finalists compete in a final round under proctored conditions. Last year's final round was held at Rutgers University in New Jersey. We can accomodate students who can not travel to NJ for the final round by making arrangements for them to test under proctored conditions near their home.

We would like to have a unifying theme for the contest each year. Here are some requirements:

- It should relate to being gifted
- There needs to be a related reading passage

Any suggestions for themes and related reading passages would be greatly appreciated.

A good theme for giftedness is something about twice-exceptionality and how it could mask giftedness, and it's related reading passage could be "Misdiagnosis and Dual-diagnoses of the Gifted". I forgot who this was by, though! ^^" If I'm not busy with my writing class, I would enter (although my writing style can be a bit too narrative and unconventional, peppered with esoteric words that confuse even the most strangest folks)!

Violet, thank you for your suggestion. Keep in mind that the majority of the writers will be between 13-15 years old.

This year's finalists were between 10 and 15 years old. The topic was self-control.

We'd like the topic to allow the kids to draw upon their personal experiences as a gifted student as material for their creative piece or support for their essay. Some of the ideas we've had so far are:

heterogeneous grouping vs. tracking
placement by age vs. ability
balance of programs for gifted vs learning disabled
balance of recognition for athletic accomplishment vs academic accomplishment

We would love to have more suggestions and recommendations for articles that the kids can read as the basis of the essay question.

balance of life, what a kid wants and need-
some time with friends, family, planned activities, time to read, draw, do nothing and not too scheduled. how to get the most out of your summer time, I'm thinking about habits of highly effective families and making the most of ones time.

surviving a less than challenging school situation takes lots of self control, appropriate manipulates to survice the lectures, activities to bring into school, talking with struggling classmates appropriately

I rambled at bit but I hope this helps. Good Luck with your efforts.

Maybe trouble getting into the right place?

In grade school, I would always getting placed in the regular classes because there were "too much people for me". It was way too easy. Ugh.

And by right place, I mean right placement in elementary school. In middle school, I was in the right classes, though.
I wonder if the teachers were really thinking about what was best for me, not for the classroom. Ugh.

How many pages of article did you have in mind?

Here's last year's assignment that dealt with self-control:

http://www.talentsearch.heroesgifted.com/writing-assignment.html

It was an article from the New Yorker. I just cut and pasted it into Word and it came out to 9 pages single spaced. A speech would work, a essay, a magazine or newspaper article, maybe a chapter of a book.

One of the best general topic ideas I've received so far is following your own path or marching to your own drummer. But I don't have an article for it yet. It needs to be universal -- something that any middle school or high school student can write about.

I like OnTheGoMom's Balance of Life idea. Does anyone have a reading passage to recommend for that?

I also like another suggestion a friend gave me on Following Your own Path but could use suggestions for a reading passage.

Maybe something from Flowers for Algernon? That book always was very useful in raising discussions.