Two editorials submitted by Greenwich High School (GHS) ninth grade students were included in the Top Ten winners of the New York Times Second Annual Student Editorial Contest. A third GHS student editorial received an Honorable Mention in the contest out of 4,500 submissions nationwide.
Who: Sarah Xu, Gjeorgjinio Brulaj, and Jean Zamora, GHS ninth graders, collaborated on an editorial entitled “Why We Stayed Up Until Midnight Finishing This Editorial” making the New York Times Top Ten Editorial winners. Henry Shi, also a ninth grader, wrote an editorial entitled “Americans Should Defend Their Digital Privacy” which also made the Top Ten Editorials. Zilana Lee, ninth grader, received an honorable mention for “The Dark Underside of College Admissions”.
English Teachers: Sarah Xu, Gjeorgiinio Brulaj, Jean Zamora and Zilana Lee are in Ms. Diana Martinez English class; Henry Shi in in Ms. Jessica VonBrachel‘s English class.
What: Second Annual New York Times Editorial Contest . GHS student essays were chosen according to the NY Times rubric, which stresses “clarity of writing, strength of argument and a skillful use of sources.” On their site, they explain that they “especially prized pieces that showcase a unique and interesting voice in the allotted 450 words. The winners resisted formula or used it deftly to their advantage.” Winners were acknowledged on The New York Times website for “playing with language, engaging readers in a scene, making clever analogies, dismissing counter-arguments, and employing humor and irony for effect. These entries were also edited, free of typos and grammatical errors, and notable for paragraphs that flowed gracefully.”
Where: Students in English and Seminar Skills classes at Greenwich High School submitted editorials online to the New York Times.
Why: Students were encouraged to participate in the NY Times Editorial Contest to provide a real-world
opportunity to meet the following curricular objectives:
CCSSELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive
topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development,
organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience
How: The New York Times’s editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal provides seven tips for writing an effective editorial in a video. As stated on The New York Times website:
“The New York Times second annual Student Editorial Contest asks you to channel that enthusiasm into something a little more formal: short, evidence-based persuasive essays like the editorials The New York Times publishes every day. The challenge is pretty straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from both New York Times and non-New York Times sources, and write a concise editorial (450 words or fewer) to convince readers of your point of view. Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort, or by yourself. When you’re done, post it in the comments section below by March 10, 2015, at 7 a.m. Eastern. With our contest partner, the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University, we will then use this rubric to select winners to publish on The Learning Network. As teachers know, the persuasive essay has long been a staple of high school education, but the Common Core standards seem to have put evidence-based argumentative writing on everybody’s agenda. You couldn’t ask for a more real-world example of the genre than the classic newspaper editorial — and The Times publishes, on average, four of them a day.”