Judging the 2018 National Book Week Essay Writing Contest 2 of 2

To cap off this month's blog posts, here is part 2 of the post on the National Book Week 2018 Essay Writing Contest where I continue sharing tips for writing coaches and mentors of students.

Here are my top five tips.

1. Know the rules. And consequently, ways of breaking them. When you follow rules to the book, where is room for creativity? In contests, contestants and participants can challenge the organisers and the status quo by showing a new insight, perspective or a way of doing things. It is a risk but one that is worth taking.

2. Know your purpose for joining in the contest and in coaching the student. Are you doing this to win or to teach and mentor? Which comes first, winning or mentoring? Your priority will define the future of your student and yours as well as teacher and mentor.

3. Do your research. Research on everything - past entries and winners of previous contests, issues relevant to the theme, new trends in writing styles and formats of contests.

4. Know your student, his or her skills, competencies and attitude towards the contest. It would help if you can also do a reading skills inventory with your student since reading and writing skills are sparing partners.

5. Know what essay to write and one that is applicable or suitable to the theme. A narrative and descriptive essay may be too personal and may miss out important points of the theme. A persuasive essay may need a lot of research. An opinion piece must show informed decisions that is well researched.

PLUS one more: Guide our student as he or she go through the writing process. Better if you and your student have designed a model of the writing process to follow.

Lastly, here are sources for teachers who are coaching mentoring students in their writing journey.

Teaching High School Students to Write - this is your toolkit for teaching, mentoring and coaching writing to high school students. The guide is produced and published by the Institute of Education Sciences (2016) and it has plenty of strategies and recommendations!

Time for Writing: The Essay - this is an online course for students and teachers who wish to attack learning writing as a process.

Becoming a Writing Coach - I am big believer of research-into-practice approach so here is a study on how teachers became better at teaching writing to middle school and high school students.

So, happy reading! Happy writing! It can be cognitive torture, but the benefits when the struggles are overcome are many and long term!

Judging the 2018 National Book Week Essay Writing Contest 1 of 2

This week, the winners of the National Book Week contests will be awarded at a special ceremony in Gateway Gallery in Cubao. Congratulations to all the winners! 

It was my first time to judge in one of the contests which was the Essay Writing Contest. My co-judges and I read through 60 entries and after four hours, deliberations included, we were ready to submit the winners.

In general, the entries followed a template of lofty ideals presented in one main idea and supported by details. Written by high school and senior high school students from different regions in the country, I had a glimpse of the students’ experiences of libraries, books and reading. Their stories are poles apart. Some essays show a rich expoaure to books while many reflect the scarcity of reading materials. I also had a sense of the level of writing skills of students of today. Essays with strong voices stood out as well as ones that are well structured. There are essays that are too personal, it missed the discussion of the NBW theme. On the other hand, there are essays that discuas big ideas related to the theme that lacked the authenticity of a high school student’s experience. At some point, I wonder who the student writer is writing for and does he or she know her purpose for writing the essay more so, joining a nationwide competitionz

I think these things need to be established early on. Writers write for themselves, yes, and this has to be processed and discussed with the student. Because, while this is true, writing is an art of communication. In my writing workshops with teenagers and adulrs, I begin by asking them existential questions: 

Who are you? 

Why do you write? 

What is your message or story?

What do you know that is worth sharing with others?

Wirting is personal and writers reach out to the world by communicating their stories and their knowledge. 

It is also important to know how to communicate one’s message and story. Enter craft, use of language and the mechanics of writing. This is the hard part. So, a writing process and model are set up so students will not be lost. If ever they wander away, which is often the case, then the process and model come in handy to bring them back to focus. 

Writing is a complicated cognitive activity. Students need mentors. While they have teachers, librarians can come in the picture and help teachers mentor students in the writing journey.

National Book Week 2018 Contest Winners

Lifted from the Facebook Page of the Philippine Librarians Association. With permission for posting from Darrel Marco, #NationalBookWeek2018 Chairperson.

Congratulations to the following nationwide winners of the NBW2018 contests. We received so many creative outputs  and these are the best:

POSTER MAKING

1st place - Angel Blessy Fordan - Central Mindanao Colleges

2nd place - Jezelle Oliva - University of the Cordilleras

3rd place - Heizel Heins Martin - Nueva Ecija University of Science & Technology 

ESSAY WRITING

1st place - Natania Shay S. Du - Sacred Heart School – Ateneo de Cebu 

2nd place - Andrea Salvador - St Paul College - Pasig

3rd place - Gwyneth Dianne Zenarosa - Ateneo de Naga University 

GRAPHIC NOVEL CREATION

1st place - Rouel Christian Piczon - Calbayog City National High School 

2nd place - Daryne Judy Chua - Hua Siong College of Iloilo 

3rd place - Judith Lobrio, Nina Balbin, Liezel Escoto, Angeline Basa - Eastern Samar National Comprehensive High School

Congratulations too and thank you dear librarians and RCs for all the help in promoting and making your own NBW events successful.

Winners will be awarded at the opening ceremony of the 84th National Book Week at the Gateway Gallery, Cubao in Quezon City on November 24, 2018.

*Next challenge is for librarians and regional councils to level up the game by mentoring and coaching more students, making them realize the importance of these contests, therefore, having more diversified, well-formed and superb entries!

National Book Week 2018: Stories! Stories! Stories!

Darrel Marco explaining the judging mechanics

National Book Week begins on Saturday, November 24, 2018 and will end on Friday, November 30, 2018. NBW Chairperson Darrel Marco shares with us what makes this NBW celebration exciting, why libraries are all the more important in today's globally conflicted world, and compares NBW 2018 to Rhandee Garlitos'  Chenelyn! Chenelyn! (Adarna House)

 1. What makes NBW 2018 exciting?

Stories! Stories! And more stories!!! 

National Book Week 2018 this year is themed "Connected Actions, Collective Vision: Libraries transforming society".

I believe that it is thru the telling of stories that we can transform our society -- stories of struggles and hardships, stories of failures and downfalls, stories of hope and aspirations, stories of collaboration and cooperation, and stories of success and happy endings.

We are opening the 2018 National Book Week with a Reader's Theatre Contest and a Storytelling Festival on November 24, 2018 at the Gateway Gallery in Cubao, Quezon City. This is one successful story of collaboration between the PLAI and an NGO gearing towards the development and promotion of literacy in our society thru books and stories.

Another notable collaboration is among different regional librarian's councils working hand-in-hand with the Department of Education divisions to promote the National Book Week.

This year, we also introduced the nationwide Graphic Novel Making contest. Entries started pouring in from all over the Philippines since August, and this is aside from the usual Poster Making and Essay writing contests. Winners of these contests will be announced on the opening day, as well.

I think what makes this event exciting is the fact that this is not purely librarians' work but a collaborative effort of a community wanting to promote literacy. Some events and celebrations may have the flash and bangs but makes the NBW2018 special are those minute details that make the event more endearing to the public.

Entries for the Poster Making Contest

2. In light of the current political climate in the country and in the world, how do librarians and libraries factor in book development in the country?

The dawn of social media was a double-edged sword, with one side helping us to move forward thru easier and real-time communication, and with the other one shaking up our core value i.e. the truth. We are bombarded daily with deliberate disinformation in the forms of fake news, alternative facts and historical revisionism, and oftentimes people retaliate thru namecalling or smart-shaming. I say, let us go back to the facts -- i.e. the written and verified ones.

As librarians, we are supposed to be the gatekeepers of these facts. The library that is open to everyone -- the innocent, the accused, the victim, the abused and even to some extent, the criminals -- should be a bastion of social justice. We still have a long way to go in developing a learned nation that would go to books to seek for facts instead of social media but I am positive of the steps being taken to have a more media and information literate society. Additionally, there is also a sliver of hope that Philippine children's books today are tackling more radical and sensitive topics that were used to be considered as taboo.

The judges troop together for a photo op.

3. If you are to compare the NBW to a book, what is it and why?

In an ideal world, it would be The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Who doesn't love a beautiful butterfly as an ending, right?

But looking back, I would rather say, it's Chenelyn, Chenelyn by Rhandee Garlitos. 

Books are there whenever we need a friend or a helping hand, whenever we want to while away our time at the beach or at a coffee shop -- but we just realize their true importance once they are gone. We take for granted those books that are offered in front of us, given that we have social media, Netflix and technology.

I hope that books and technology would co-exist and would not go against each other. I mean if you could go watch one episode of RuPaul's Drag Race, then try to read one chapter of a book too, or even one short story, and you'll see that your life will change.

National Book Week 2018 Contests and Competitions

The Philippines celebrates two library and bookish events this month namely, the National Book Week (NBW) headed by the Philippine Librarians Association Inc (PLAI) and the Library and Information Services (LIS) Month as organized by the National Library of the Philippines (NLP). Yes, it is a very busy month for Filipino Librarians since all regional librarians association, public libraries, school and academic libraries are bent on organizing events, activities and projects on the occassions mentioned above.

It doesn’t end there.

The PLAI Congress is scheduled on November 20-23, 2018. If Filipino librarians are not affected by the senate’s decision to repeal the Continuing Professional Development Law, expect the attendance to double up from last year’s 900 plus participants. As dictated by tradition, a PLAI assembly usually takes place on November 30 as culminating event.

These celebrations are peppered with contests and competitions in between the days and weeks of stress and excitement. The PLAI, for one, has put together several contests for young people to partake in. This year’s NBW Chair, Darrel Marco, led the NBW committee in organizing an essay contest, a graphic novel contest, a poster making contest and a Readers Theatre contest. These competitions are meant to develop skills in the communication arts, visual arts and the sciences. This year’s theme, Connected Actions, Collective Vision: Libraries Transforming Lives, is the focal point to which the entries in the essay, graphic novel and poster contests are based upon.

Apparently, I was invited as judge of the essay writing competition. This is my first time to judge in the contest. Having been invited as judge in previous storytelling competitions of the NBW, I know what to expect. I have written in the blog my insights and previous experiences as judge in the NBW contests so, expect that I will do the same for this year. That’s one post I hope you will be waiting for in the next few days because the entries in the essay contests are evidences of the country’s collective thought process, pedagogy and teaching practices in literacy skills development, as well as, the untapped potential of librarians as agent of change, collaboration and community building.

Judges of all three contests, essay, graphic novel and poster making gather for a photo op. 

As the judging of the three contests was done simultaneously, we noticed patterns and similarities that bothered and moved us to think of doing more for the book industry and the LIS profession.