Mrs. Ruwe

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Congratulations Emma M. and Indigo H. who will be advancing to the state tournament on May 24/25 at the College of Wooster! 1. What is Power of the Pen?  Power of the Pen is an interscholastic Ohio writing competition for junior high students. Our team meets after school for an hour most Thursdays.
 
2. How will teams be chosen? Interested students will come to Room 11 on each of the Thursdays above. Students will be given a writing prompt (one for eighth and another for seventh) and will write for forty-five minutes to that prompt. Each week the papers will be ranked with the other papers in that grade. At the end of the three weeks, the eight students in each grade with the highest scores will be asked to be on the team with the two lowest of those serving as alternates. 
 
3. What will I do every Thursday at Power of the Pen? Team members will be writing on a given topic each week and then reading/critiquing each other’s work. There is often a specific focus each week such as improving the use of figurative language, writing from different points of view, great leads and endings, etc. In order to provide continuity from last year, Mrs. Lewis will be coaching the eighth grade team, and Mrs. Ruwe will be coaching the new seventh grade team. There will be some Thursdays when both teams will work together. 
 
4. What happens at the district competition? The team and alternates arrive at the given site and are given a folder with a participant number. Then all students participate in ice-breaking activities with students from the Cincinnati area (this is a fun way to meet people from other schools). After that, team members go to an assigned room. There will be five other students in their group along with two judges. The students are given a prompt and have 45 minutes to write a paper in response to the prompt. Papers are then collected and the students have a ten minute break before going to a different room with a different group of students and judges. The process is repeated in the second and third sessions, with a different prompt used for each. While students are writing in the second and third sessions, the judges are ranking the previous sessions papers from 1-6, and also assigning point values. For the district competition, the ranking average of all three sessions is what determines whether or not a student moves on to the regional level. Approximately thirty to forty percent of the students will qualify for the regional competition. 
 
5. What happens after the district competition? Those who qualify will continue on to the regional competition which will also be held on a Saturday afternoon. Any qualifiers from that will go to the state tournament. The state tournament is at the College of Wooster. You will stay overnight in a dorm, participate in a variety of fun activities such as basketball games, dances, movies, etc. and compete in the competition.
 
If you would like further information, please see Mrs. Lewis or Mrs. Ruwe or you may send an email with your questions. We look forward to another successful year with Power of the Pen.

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Mrs. Ruwe

POWER OF THE PEN