Freshman Gretchen Hinger, sophomore Grace Lang, junior Lucy Yeomans and senior Flora Lechtreck read the beginning of their Clarke County School District-winning Young Georgia Authors submissions on April 30. For Lang (pictured), the writing process was a cathartic experience. “It’s kind of an outlet. I don’t feel like I have a lot of upfront creativity aside (from) writing and artwork in my daily life, I don’t really exude a lot of creativity, so when I have the chance to write it’s a rare-often chance to do that,” Lang said “But when I have the chance to write that’s when it all comes out.” Video and cover photo by Maya Cornish
Four students from Clarke Central High School were the winners at various levels for the 2019 Young Georgia Authors competition.
Freshman Gretchen Hinger, sophomore Grace Lang, junior Lucy Yeomans and senior Flora Lechtreck were among the list of Clarke County School District winners for the Young Georgia Authors (YGA) competition on March 7.
According to the YGA 2018-19 rulebook, it is a writing competition offered to grades kindergarten through twelfth 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.”
For Georgia Language Arts Supervisors (GLAS) president Dr. Amy Fouse, the competition is distinctive.
“One of the unique characteristics of this competition is that there are no required topics, genres, prompts, etc.,” Fouse wrote in an email. “Students are able to submit any type of writing they wish as long as it does not exceed 1,900 words.”
The criteria for submitted pieces to advance in the competition are expression of ideas, language use and unique perspective and voice. These categories were selected by GLAS and adapted from the National Council of Teachers of English competition guidelines.
“Winning pieces are ones that are strongest examples of all three categories,” Fouse wrote in an email. “Because of the multi-layer process (…), each entity (school, district, RESA and state) arranges the judging committee.”
All four submissions from CCHS moved on to the Northeast Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA) level, which Lechtreck and Yeomans both passed according to an announcement on March 27. RESA is where district winners of each grade level in each county of Georgia are compared against each other, with the winner then proceeding to the state level.
“(GLAS) members and RESA representatives come together to score those entries, and the decisions are quite difficult,” Fouse wrote in an email. “We have incredible writers across our state!”
Yeomans, whose piece “The Blue Cup” advanced to the RESA level, says she and her family feel proud of her work.
“I’ve been thinking about writing something like that for a long time because on the day that (my grandmother’s family) celebrated the end of (World War I) in Brunswick, (Georgia,) her dad bought her a little blue cup,” Yeomans said. “She gave it to me probably a year ago and I thought it’d be cool to write a story about it.”
For Lechtreck, competing in YGA was a rewarding learning experience.
“If you’re proud of something, you should definitely advocate for it. You should definitely make sure that other people get to see it, unless it’s personal to you, but I think it does feel good to be recognized for something that you feel you did well. It kind of validates your feelings in a way,” Lechtreck said.
