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Winner 2022 - Maya Kumar

Information

Hi everyone! 

 

This year, we’re introducing the ‘The Bennett Okun Writing Competition’ and invite you all to take part, regardless of whether you're part of Dover Today or not! It’s an opportunity for all students in high school to demonstrate their writing ability on a larger platform. You also have the option of requesting feedback after your submission has been judged, because as writers we should always be seeking to grow and improve. To do this, just email us at one of the addresses below. 

 

There will be an opportunity to win first prize, runner-up, or an honourable mention. The winners will receive the 2022 Bennett Okun Writing Award, and the first prize is having your essay published on our website. 

 

This year, we want to see your best work. The prompt for all responses is:

 

How do you know you are the same person as you were when you were born?
 

Submission guidelines

 

Please make sure you follow all of these guidelines for your submission to be judged. Check your work before submitting!

  • Legible 11-point font

  • Double spaced

  • The submission should be titled in the following manner: LastName-FirstName-SubmissionName (i.e. Sameer-Rahul-Identity)

  • We recommend a minimum of about 700 words, but no more than 1500 are allowed. After 1500 words, we will stop reading.

  • Deadline for submissions is Tuesday, 1st November 2022. We have given you plenty of time to write a good quality piece of writing, so we recommend you plan ahead!

 

We encourage you to be creative in your response and will also be judging you on this. You may wish to:

  • Write a collection of poems (ideally more than one, but they collectively must follow the word count)

  • Share an anecdote or write a short story

Be creative! We are not looking for academic essays and want to be engaged :)

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Resources

 

  • Here is the rubric we will be using to judge your responses—we encourage all participants to refer to this frequently so you know how we’ll approach your responses.

  • Attached here is an editing workshop that was conducted during a Dover Today meeting last year, which may help you fine-tune your work. We recommend using this just before submitting!


 

How to Submit

 

  • Attached here is a Google Form to submit a PDF copy of your work.

  • Please be sure to submit before the deadline as we will close the form afterwards.

 

We hope that we receive many responses as we are constantly looking for ways to enhance our high school writing community. We encourage everyone, regardless of age or perceived writing ability, to take part!

 

If you have any questions at any point, feel free to email the following people:

 

Looking forward to reading your responses!

 

Sincerely,

The Bennett Okun Writing Competition Committee 2022

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