Big Read Student Poetry Contest

To celebrate the first ever state-wide Big Read, Alabama’s public libraries are sponsoring a written poetry contest for middle-school students (grades 5-8). The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore the importance of reading in American culture. We will be encouraging everyone in the state to read and discuss The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Here’s how the contest would work. By January 15, 2010, contact the contest coordinator for your region to sign up your school to participate. The coordinators for each region are listed in the state-wide brochure. Each participating school in the region will select the top three poems for each division, Junior (grades 5-6) and Senior (grades 7-8) from all student submissions. The winning poems from each school will be mailed or hand-delivered to the designated address by February 24, 2010. The judges will select the top three winning poems for both Junior and Senior divisions from all the school submissions in the region, and forward these poems to the judge for the state-wide contest. The winners of the state-wide contest will be announced on April 17, 2010 at the Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery.

Please refer to the brochure for details of the contest.

Brochures (Adobe Reader required)

Generic State-Wide Contest Brochure (.pdf)

School Participation Form for the Statewide Poetry Contest (.pdf)

Jefferson County residents, refer to this brochure (.pdf)

The Big Read: Alabama Reads
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain