Two Bulloch County Schools students advanced to the state level of the Young Georgia Authors contest. Their literary works were selected from 17 counties’ entries as the First District region winners for their grade. Two additional students’ essays also received top-three placements in the competition.
Isla Hansen, a second-grade student at Mill Creek Elementary, is her grade region winner with “The Winter Wonderland, Book 1.” Evy Shen, a senior at Statesboro High School, is the region winner for twelfth grade with her essay, “Undocumented.”
Their works was judged with grade-level winners from each state’s 16 Regional Education Service Agency (RESA) regions.
Bulloch County Schools also had two other students recognized by the judges. Anna Claire Newman, a sixth-grader from Southeast Bulloch Middle School, was the first runner-up with her short story, “How I Died.” Phoebe Hansen of Langston Chapel Middle School won second-place for seventh grade with her work, “The Chase.”
An appointed committee of English language arts professionals brought together by the First District Regional Education Service Agency (RESA) judged each of the 17-member school districts’ system winners to select region winners for each grade level to advance to state. School districts could submit one entry per grade level (K-12) to the regional competition.
Young Georgia Authors does not provide a writing prompt for students or any other boundaries to their genre choice or creativity beyond a 1900-word maximum length. Students write and submit original works ranging from poetry, short stories, essays, journalism, and more. Their works could not be part of a collaboration with another student or a class assignment in which they had previously received feedback from their teacher. Judges evaluate entries based on expression of ideas, language use, perspective and voice.
According to the Young Georgia Authors' website, the purpose of the competition is to “encourage students to develop enthusiasm for and expertise in their writing, to provide a context to celebrate their writing successes, and to recognize student achievement in arts and academics.”
The competition is sponsored by the Georgia Language Arts Supervisors Organization (GLAS), the Georgia RESA Network and the Georgia Department of Education. The competition has encouraged writing skills and provided an outlet for young authors for more than 20 years.
Grice Connect requested photos of the winners, but were unable to get them.
The students did not place at the state level, but to make it to the next level is an impressive accomplishment.
Below are the State-Level Winners.
