Young writers show creative side through words

WESTFIELD TWP. — More than 100 pupils from 15 Ohio high schools competed Saturday in the inaugural JustWrite Ohio writing contest at Cloverleaf High School. Pupils were assigned various genres of fiction — including historical, science, realistic, mystery, classic horror-gothic and fantasy — or narrative nonfiction and given 45 minutes to write a three-page story. Teacher-coaches judged the work. "It's a good way to bring out people's inner creativity," said Kayleigh Ethington, 16, a Cloverleaf 10th-grader who competed Saturday. "In some schools, they don't get to do a lot of creating writing. With this competition, the possibilities are almost limitless." The tournament was the first organized by JustWrite Ohio, a new Toledo-based nonprofit interscholastic writing competition organization. JustWrite has scheduled a second writing contest for February at Dublin Coffman High School in Dublin. Top performers from Saturday's and next month's competitions will face off at JustWrite's first state tournament in May at the University of Findlay, about 40 miles south of Toledo. Event organizers will announce the invitees to state in March. On Saturday, pupils had no idea in advance what genres they would be assigned. Kayleigh and teammate Cierra Reed, 15, also a 10th-grader at Cloverleaf, were asked to write historical fiction, narrative nonfiction and classic horror stories. Then the writers were given prompts or topics for each genre. For historical fiction, the prompt was "chasing your enemies." Cierra composed a story about three cowboys living in Tombstone, Arizona, when a group of bandits arrived. One of the cowboys was a girl whose mother had been killed by the bandits, and she wanted revenge. Another cowboy was a former bandit, which created more tension. "I have a comic I've been working on about these characters, and I wanted to bring them into the prompt," Cierra said. Madalyn Bauman, 14, a freshman at Norwayne High School in Creston, wrote a horror story about a psychopath who killed his girlfriend and only pretended to show remorse to police. Madalyn said she and her teammates practiced ahead of time for Saturday's competition. "Every week we were given a genre and prompt and wrote for 45 minutes," Madalyn said. "Then our coach would grade it and give it back." In addition to writing stories, pupils were asked to write one poem before the tournament. The poems were read aloud by three guest poet laureates: researcher and writer Joanna Wilson; Becky Schiegel, gifted intervention specialist at Medina Educational Service Center; and Dominic Caruso, who runs 1710 Press, an Akron-area publishing firm. English teacher Brittany Charek, Cloverleaf's JustWrite coach and tournament organizer, said Cloverleaf is one of the few schools of its size to offer a wide variety of creative electives, including theater, creating writing, journalism, songwriting, guitar, ceramics and digital design. "It's cool to work for a district that provides opportunities for students to grow creatively in addition to athletics and academics," Charek said. Nelson said he started JustWrite Ohio toward the end of last school year because high school students in Ohio didn't have a writing contest. There was only one for middle-schoolers, Power of the Pen. "We wanted to make sure high school writers had a voice," Nelson said. In addition to Cloverleaf and Norwayne, high schools participating in Saturday's competition were Barberton, Berkshire in Burton, Buckeye Local in Rayland, Cornerstone Christian Academy in Willoughby Hills, Field in Mogadore, Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, Harrison Central Junior-Senior in Cadiz, Holy Name in Parma Heights, Independence, Marlington in Lexington Township, Olmsted Falls, University School in Hunting Valley and Wooster. Contact reporter Bob Sandrick at (330)721-4060 or areanews@medina-gazette.com.