Colorado high school seniors applying to the University of Colorado at Boulder for fall 2000 can display their writing skills by entering the annual University Writing Program essay contest.
Interested students should submit two essays 聴 their best analytical or argumentative essay written in high school, and a personal narrative of two to three pages that is inspired by the first paper 聴 by Jan. 18, 2000, according to Deborah Viles, the contest聮s co-director.
"The purpose of the contest is to promote good writing and recognize the sponsoring teachers as well as the winning students and their parents," Viles said.
All finalists will be awarded tuition scholarships, including a $1,000 first prize, a $750 second prize, a $500 third prize and seven honorable mentions of $250.
Lauren Robinson, now a freshman at CU-Boulder, won the $1,000 scholarship in 1999 for her analysis of a T.S. Eliot book of poems.
"I analyzed 聭Old Possum聮s Book of Practical Cats,聮 which is the book Andrew Lloyd Webber later based his musical 聭Cats聮 on," said Robinson, who graduated from Arvada West High School.
"I basically wrote about how Eliot聮s life related to and mirrored the lives of the cats in the play," she said. "And for the second part I discussed why the play was important to me."
Each entrant must have a faculty sponsor from their high school. The sponsor of the first prize winner will receive the $250 Benjamin and Jeanette Levitt Memorial Teaching Award.
Robinson聮s junior English teacher, Sandy Lott, was her sponsoring teacher and won the $250 award.
Essays will be judged on organization, use of evidence and detail, and "felicity of expression" by an advisory board comprised of faculty of the CU-Boulder University Writing Program and high school English teachers, according to Viles.
"These students can choose any work they have done in high school, as long as it is an analytical or argumentative essay," Viles said. "Their submission can be from history, science or math, it doesn聮t have to be written strictly for an English class."
The 10 finalists will be notified in March and invited with their sponsoring teachers and parents to an awards luncheon to be held on the CU-Boulder campus April 8.
Interested students should contact Deborah Viles at (303) 492-8188 for an application and information.
All entries must be sent to the High School Essay Contest, University Writing Contest, University Writing Program, Campus Box 359, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309. Incomplete applications will not be accepted.