4Real Forums: writing contests

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Topic: writing contests

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mooreboyz
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Joined: March 16 2008
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Posted: Feb 04 2009 at 4:12pm \| IP Logged

I'm looking for something to motivate my boys' creative writing and considering how they like competition, I think a contest would be great. Do any of you know of any or know of a site that lists them?

Thanks

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Jackie
7 boys - 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17 years

ALmom
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Posted: Feb 12 2009 at 5:59pm \| IP Logged

No one has responded yet so I'll throw out the one thing I know with some caveats hoping someone else will have better thoughts.

We did a Written and Illustrated by... competition when the girls were younger. It was mom intensive and involved binding books (sewn bound). Those stories are treasures that I keep and it was really worthwhile to do. That being said, I haven't done any of this with my boys because of the mom intensity and time factor. Looking that you have a 1 year old and a lot of folks close in age, it might work if you were a real fan of unit studies and could turn this into your whole school day. Me, I would be more than a bit stressed to try it now. Oh and obviously with a competition with deadlines and requiring mom is a lot of stress.

In this, the children either dictate or write out their story - planning where they will put it on a page and where their illustrations will go. Mom is the editor but cannot put any words - just ask questions, correct spelling and punctuation type things. Then you do a layout thing - definitely requires adult assistance - I wasn't even confident to keep it all straight. You eventually glue the printed and illustrated pages in the correct place on your layout sheets. This part is tricky as you have to thing about how it will all end up when things are folded and stacked (ie you don't want the wrong illustration ending up next to the print). My dh was in charge of this part. Once everything was glued on, then you actually did a sewn binding. We also made a book jacket with the blurbs front and back fold. There is a photo of the child on the blurb about the author. i did a whole lot of typing and retyping as the children changed things.

It makes a real keepsake and I'm glad we did it. We found the book from Written and Illustrated by... helpful in terms of layout instructions. I wasn't keen on some of the stories highlighted - just so you know.

Hope you get some other ideas from other folks.

I think Kolbe sponsors some writing competitions and someone had a poetry competition not too long ago cause someone in our co-op got printed - but I don't know what that one was. Most of the writing competitions I know are more essay than creative writing.

Janet

mooreboyz
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Posted: Feb 14 2009 at 11:54am \| IP Logged

Thanks for your reply, Janet. I dug around a bit on the net and found a couple. I'm going to print the info for the kids and see what they think. One is a group project that maybe they could do together. The prizes aren't that exciting though. So, I don't know if they'll get into it. I understand what you mean about taking my time. Thanks for the honest reminder.

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Jackie
7 boys - 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17 years

Erin
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Joined: Feb 23 2005
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Posted: Feb 14 2009 at 7:18pm \| IP Logged

Jackie

My boys enjoy writing 'round robins' with their friends. My oldest boy(13) organises it; who is in, order of writers etc. The story is started off emailed to the group (4 works best) and then the next child writes, hits reply all and so forth. My children's writing and mechanics have improved dramatically this way.

Dominic's blog has the last story published if you'd like to see what I mean; Australia in Danger. He currently has two more in the process. Generally the children writing are between 10-15.

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Erin
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JEJE
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Joined: Sept 08 2007
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Posted: Feb 17 2009 at 7:38pm \| IP Logged

I found this site that looks interesting

http://homeschoolwriters.com/default.aspx

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