Westlake students named semi-finalists in letter writing contest

LBMS eighth-grader Ameen Zayad's letter was selected as a finalist in the Library of Congress' Letters About Literature contest. He is pictured with teacher Deb Schrembeck.

A Lee Burneson Middle School student’s letter was named among the top 20 percent in Ohio to be a finalist in the Library of Congress’ Letters About Literature 2015 Contest.

Ameen Zayad, an eighth-grader at LBMS, had his letter chosen from among 165 semi-finalist letters from across the state as a finalist in the contest. In December, Deb Schrembeck’s eighth-grade language arts students, and Katie Beachler and Jessica Dye’s sixth-grade classes at Dover Intermediate School, entered the writing contest, which asks students in grades four to 12 to read a book, poem or speech and write to the author about how the book affected them personally. In Ohio, 1,784 letters were received. The top 20 percent were selected as state finalists. Nationally, about 8,000 letters make it to state-level judging.

LBMS state semi-finalists are Sami Brizes, Isabella DiGiulio, Camille Feorene, Brian Knott, Amelia Martens, Akhilesh Reddy, Meghana Tandon, Rachel Wagner and Ameen Zayad. DIS semi-finalists are Maddie Shaver, Zach Regas, Chloe Howlett, Alex Daoud, Gigi Redinger, Matthew Sadd, Lila Williams and Angela Yu.

Only first-place state winners advance to national competition. Judges include authors, publishers, librarians and educators from all 50 states. All of the state finalist letters will be forwarded to living authors in hopes of a personal reply. Tens of thousands of students from across the country enter the Letters About Literature contest each year. National winners will be recognized at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in May.

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Volume 7, Issue 7, Posted 9:49 AM, 04.07.2015