Our annual Contest Calendar might be the one strongest factor we publish all 12 months. Academics inform us they plan their courses round our challenges, and tens of 1000’s of youngsters throughout the globe take part by creating narratives, profiles, opinion items and evaluations, podcasts, movies, illustrations and photograph essays.
For us, these contests are an honor and a pleasure to host. We love studying from younger individuals — about what strikes them and makes them mad, what intrigues and confuses and delights and defines them.
Each summer time, we tinker with our choices to maintain them recent, and we’ve made some important adjustments this time round.
To begin, in August, The Studying Community will have fun its twenty fifth anniversary, and we’re marking it by working our first-ever problem that’s open to our full viewers, each academics and youngsters. We hope collectively you’ll assist us inform a wealthy story about what it’s wish to be in highschool in 2023.
Like educators throughout, we’ve been spurred by the appearance of generative synthetic intelligence to make artistic tweaks to our choices. This 12 months, we’re placing extra emphasis on the components of the composing course of which might be, effectively, human. A look on the 10 descriptions beneath would possibly present you that parts like voice, standpoint, reflection, making connections and constructing neighborhood are extra central than ever. We’ve invented new contests and up to date previous ones, and we’ll be emphasizing course of in addition to product all through. We even have a full writing curriculum to assist assist this work.
If you happen to want just a little encouragement to take part, we suggest two items. College students would possibly begin with “‘I Was Sufficient’: How I Stopped Making an attempt to Sound Good and Discovered My Real Writing Voice,” by a young person who displays on how our competitions helped her develop. If you’re a instructor, our reader-submitted 10 Causes to Ship Pupil Work Out Into the World could be compelling — particularly, maybe, cause quantity 10.
To obtain a PDF model of this contest calendar, click on right here. Questions? Scroll to the underside of this put up to be taught extra, write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com or put up a remark right here.
Aug. 16-Oct. 4, 2023
What are you able to present or inform us that may assist clarify what it’s wish to be an educator or a pupil in a secondary faculty proper now?
We’re inviting you to contribute to a collective portrait of what it means to be in highschool at this time, instructed by these residing it.
All who work in any capability in a secondary faculty, or are college students over 13 in a single, are invited to doc, replicate and specific themselves on any facet, huge or small, of their expertise there. We wish to know what’s arduous, however we additionally wish to know the place and the way you discover that means and pleasure.
As with our unique Coming of Age contest — the blueprint for this effort — you possibly can submit writing or photos, audio or video. You’ll be able to ship us artifacts, comparable to pictures out of your digicam roll, or create one thing new. And you may work alone or in a gaggle, with others your age or throughout ages, roles and even faculties. Every submission should be accompanied by a brief artist’s assertion.
Listed here are the competition guidelines and submission kind, and listed here are 15 questions and a step-by-step information that may show you how to brainstorm concepts.
Replace, Jan. 4: Winners have been introduced!
Oct. 4-Nov. 1, 2023
Are you able to inform a significant and fascinating true story out of your life in simply 100 phrases? That’s the problem we posed to youngsters final fall with our 100-Phrase Private Narrative Contest, a storytelling kind popularized by Trendy Love’s Tiny Love Tales. The reply, we found, was a powerful sure, so we’re bringing it again for Yr 2.
Listed here are this 12 months’s guidelines and tips. For extra inspiration, learn the work of final 12 months’s winners, or comply with this step-by-step information for taking part.
Replace, Jan. 17: Winners have been introduced!
Nov. 1-Dec. 6, 2023
Evaluation a e-book, film, restaurant, album, theatrical manufacturing, online game, dance, TV present or artwork exhibition, with recommendation from New York Instances critics to assist.
Replace, April 2: Winners have been introduced!
Feb. 14-March 20, 2024
Impressed by the immersive New York Instances sequence The place We Are, which focuses on younger individuals and the areas the place they create neighborhood, we invite college students to work alone or with others to make photograph essays concerning the communities that curiosity them.
You’ll be able to doc any type of offline neighborhood you want and have individuals of any age. Then inform us about it by sending six to eight photos with captions and a brief introduction.
Listed here are the principles and tips. Our step-by-step information will stroll you thru the method, and our writing immediate might help you provide you with an unique matter.
Replace, June 10: Winners have been introduced!
Feb. 28-March 27, 2024
Produce a 15-second video concerning the that means of certainly one of our current Phrases of the Day.
Listed here are the guidelines and tips, that are the identical as final 12 months’s apart from one element: You’ll be able to work solely with phrases printed in our W.O.T.D. column between June 1, 2023, and Feb. 28, 2024.
For inspiration, check out the work of previous winners.
Replace, Could 20: Winners have been introduced!
March 13-Could 1, 2024
Our Pupil Editorial Contest ran for a decade, and we obtained actually extraordinary work, however it’s time for a refresh. This 12 months, we’re asking you to attract on the identical expertise and passions to make your case, however this time within the type of an open letter.
An open letter is a broadcast letter of protest or attraction normally addressed to a person, group or establishment however supposed for most people. Consider the numerous “Pricey Taylor Swift” open letters you could find on-line and on social media: Certain, they’re addressed to Ms. Swift, however they’re actually a manner for the author to share opinions and emotions on feminism, or ticket gross sales, or the music business, or … the listing goes on.
As you would possibly already know in the event you’ve learn Martin Luther King’s well-known Letter From Birmingham Jail, an open letter is a literary machine. Although it appears on the floor to be supposed for only one particular person or group, and due to this fact normally reads like a private letter (and might make readers really feel they’re by some means “listening in” on personal ideas), it’s actually a persuasive essay addressed to the general public. This current letter signed by over 1,000 tech leaders concerning the risks of A.I., this humorous 2020 letter addressed to Harry and Meghan, and this video letter from younger Asian-People to their households about Black Lives Matter are all examples of the custom.
Up to date, April 18: As we’ve got for 14 years now, we’ll be asking you to inform us what acquired your consideration in The Instances and why. However this 12 months, every week college students can enter as they at all times have by submitting a brief written response — or they will make a video as much as 90 seconds lengthy.
Listed here are this 12 months’s guidelines and tips. For inspiration, take heed to the work of previous winners and go to the associated writing unit.
All College Yr
Our Dialog Problem for Weekly Present Occasions
We invite college students to react to the information by way of our every day writing prompts, and every week, we publish a choice of their feedback in a roundup for the world to learn. We can even give a shout-out to new faculties that be a part of the dialog.
A Few Extra Particulars About Our Contests
Why can we run so many contests? We imagine in pupil voice. We would like younger individuals to be energetic content material creators, not simply shoppers. And we’re proud to supply locations the place they will create for an genuine viewers of scholars, academics, dad and mom and different readers from world wide.
Listed here are extra particulars:
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The work college students ship us is at all times thought of by our workers and different specialists, together with Instances journalists, in addition to educators from accomplice organizations or skilled practitioners in a associated discipline. Judging for our contests is blind. Meaning we see solely the entries themselves, not pupil names or faculties, once we make our choices.
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Winners get their work printed on The Studying Community. Some can also be featured in a particular part of the print New York Instances.
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Anybody who submits to our contests retains the copyright for the work, even after we publish it.
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About two months after every contest closes, we’ll announce the winners, runners-up and honorable mentions. We normally have fun dozens of scholars every time.
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On the day every contest begins, we are going to add a hyperlink right here, on this web page, to the competition announcement so college students and academics can submit entries. All contests besides Summer season Studying start and finish on Wednesdays.
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College students can enter as many contests as they need, however they will submit just one entry per contest. Our Summer season Studying Contest, nevertheless, gives a recent alternative to submit every week for 10 weeks.
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College students’ entries should be unique and essentially their very own. An entry should not be printed elsewhere on the time of submission, together with in a college newspaper, on a radio station’s web site or in a literary journal.
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All of our contests are open to college students world wide ages 13 to 19 who’re in center faculty or highschool, besides “What Excessive College is Like in 2023,” which is open solely to secondary college students. Faculty college students can’t submit entries. Nonetheless, highschool college students (together with highschool postgraduate college students) who’re taking a number of faculty courses can take part. College students attending their first 12 months of a two-year CEGEP in Quebec can even take part. As well as, college students ages 19 or below who’ve accomplished highschool however are taking a niche 12 months or are in any other case not enrolled in faculty can take part. Word: The kids and stepchildren of New York Instances staff aren’t eligible to enter these contests, nor are college students who dwell in the identical family as these staff.
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We will’t wait to see what you’ll create this 12 months!
