AGAWAM – The submission deadline for the Agawam Cultural Council (ACC) writing competition has been extended to Dec. 31.

The seventh annual event is open to all school-age children living, or attending school in, the town of Agawam, according to the ACC’s website.

All entries, according to the website, must be written legibly and titled. The entrant’s grade should be listed on the writeup, but the entrant’s name, address, and other personal information should not be included on the paper, so as to ensure unbiased judging.

A cover sheet with contact information should accompany each submission as well, and participants can email everything to agawamcc@yahoo.com. Entrants may also hand deliver or mail their copies to the ACC. All of this information is explained in-depth on the ACC website, https://www.agawamcc.org/html/WRITING_COMP.htm.

For this year’s competition, students are asked to answer the prompt: “Facing the Challenges of Coronavirus – How Did You Do It?” Depending on what grade you are in, students can answer this question through an art poster, paragraph, poem, composition or essay. Students can look on the website to see specifically how they must approach this assignment. Prize money will be awarded to the top three winners.

Mary Jane Augusti, a former sixth grade teacher at the Roberta G. Doering Middle School, said that when she joined the ACC last year, her goal was to reinstate the writing competition because she believed writing itself was becoming a lost art.

“I really pressed for a lot of writing, and I really protested against the use of computer teaching,” said Augusti. “I think kids need to have interaction with other kids, and they need to have that direct interaction with their teachers.”

Augusti thinks that it is important for students to have other people critiquing, editing, and examining their work. Through this process, students can inherently become better writers, according to Augusti.

As for the competition itself, this will be the first one for Agawam students since 2015. According to Augusti, the ACC tried conducting another one in 2016, but there was not enough submissions to keep it going.

“In fact, there were no submissions at all from the high school,” said Augusti, with regards to the 2016 competition. “It was weird because I thought that people who were writing for the daily newspaper would have been really interested.”

The problem with a lack of submissions is a part of a wider systemic issue, according to Augusti.   The writing component of SAT tests were completely abolished because, according to Augusti, the submissions by students were of poor quality, and colleges began giving up on the writing quality from students.

“My fear is that writing is becoming a lost art,” said Augusti. “Your ability to write is one of the keys to success in your job, no matter what you do.”

So with this contest, Augusti and the ACC are encouraging students to re-establish a relationship with good writing, while being as creative as possible. So far, the ACC has only received one essay from the high school, some from the middle school, and none from the junior high.  Augusti hopes that students are motivated beyond the prize money.

“It is a source of pride,” said Augusti. “I’d like to see kids motivated by more than just something monetary, like pride, or doing something really constructive and interesting.”

While she is hoping parents will encourage their children to participate in this competition, Augusti also understands that some people are simply trying to survive during these tough times.

“It doesn’t even have to be the best essay in the world,” said Augusti. “Just being able to communicate it [what you think], and say what you think, because people don’t get to do that very often.”

When it comes to judging the entries, Augusti said that there will most likely be a council of four or five members examining everyone’s work. They will be looking for grammar and mechanics, but most importantly, creativity and honesty, she added.

“Writing can be a great form of communication,” said Augusti. “And sometimes It just comes down to saying what you feel. And we all have something to say about this pandemic.”

If you have any questions about the competition, you can email or call Augusti. Her contact information is also available on the aforementioned website.