On Tuesday, April 19, the Southern Utah University Writing Center held the awards ceremony for the spring semester’s general education writing contest—the Scriblerian.
The Scriblerian is a contest held every semester where students can submit both argumentative and expressive papers from any 1000 or 2000-level course at SUU.
According to the Writing Center’s website, “The Scriblerian Writing Competition is designed to recognize the efforts of students in SUU English writing classes and other general education classes that require written assignments. Basically, it’s an essay contest.”
This semester, the contest had around 25 entries. First and second place winners were chosen by a committee of Writing Center tutors using grading rubrics and averaged scores.
The contest had five categories: English 1010 argumentative, English 1010 expressive, English 2010 argumentative, English 2010 expressive and General Education 1000 argumentative.
Winners were presented a certificate and gift card from the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Jean Boreen.
The winners were as follows:
English 1010 expressive: First place — ”Nutrition Education in High School” by Tia Dudley and second place — ”Vaccine Hesitancy and Exposure to Misinformation” by Eryn Patterson.
English 1010 argumentative: First place — ”The Literacy Legacy” by Jennifer Groves and second place — ”Little Women Gets a Recommend” by Kamele Lung.
English 2010 expressive: First place — ”Whispers” by Thompson Scribner and second place — ”The Importance of Rouladen” by Anya “Nico” Johnson.
English 2010 argumentative: First place — ”Unfolding Dominance of Inside/Outside” by Brooklyn Claire Monson and second place — ”The Media and Police are Failing Missing Minorities” by Catherine Bateman.
General Education 1000 argumentative: First place — ”Treating Depression in Children and Teens” by Kamele Lung.
Family and friends of the winners, along with professors, came to see them receive their awards and hear them read excerpts from their winning essays.
The essays covered many different topics from movie recommendations to a narrative about the student’s reading and writing journey and even a critique of the way the media treats missing minorities.
The reading was preceded and followed by a social reception and refreshments.
A digital PDF with all of the issues is forthcoming on the Scriblerian tab of the Writing Center website.
Article by Callie King-Stevens
Photos courtesy of Chase Redd