The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien

High School
STUDENT
Writing contest

Your writing contest entry should be an essay – a prose composition on a single, focused subject, expressing a personal point of view – and should not exceed 650 words. Please see page 2 for contest rules.

Submit your essay to your teacher for review.

Include the following information on the cover page of your entry:
• Title of the essay
• Name
• Telephone number
• Email
• Mailing address
• Teacher’s name and school
Information about The Big Read program and the writing contest is at SBPLibrary.org/sbreads .

Writing Contest- The Things They Carried: For High School Students

Writing Prompt:
Discuss one insight into the experience of war that you got from reading The Things They Carried or by listening to Tim O’Brien’s talk on October 23rd. (650 word maximum)

Rules and Process
Your entry should be an essay–a prose composition on a single, focused subject, expressing a personal point of view — and should not exceed 650 words.

• Entries from teachers will be accepted from October 25 through November 8 at 5:00 p.m.

• One entry per person; all entries must be double spaced, with numbered pages. Each entry shall have a cover page with the title of the piece; the author’s name, email, telephone number, and mailing address; name of school, grade level and teacher.

• Every subsequent page must carry the title and a page number but NOT the author’s name (to facilitate judging).

• High school students will submit essays to their teachers; each teacher of a class may select and submit up to 3 from his or her class. (Home-schooled students and others not in a classroom should contact [email protected].)

• Entries may be submitted via email (as a pdf file) or by hard copy, but may not have been previously published anywhere else.

• Entries must be original works in English; plagiarism (which includes the use of third party poetry, song lyrics, characters or another person’s ideas without express written permission) results in disqualification.

• Once submitted, no changes may be made to the entry.

• Judges’ decisions are final.

• By entering this contest, authors provide explicit right for the Santa Barbara Public Library System and for the Santa Barbara Independent to publish their essay in print and online.

• There is no entry fee, nor is there any remuneration to those selected as winners.

• Winners, runners-up, and honorable mentions will be announced in late December, 2013, published in The Independent (either in print or online) and honored at a reception/reading.

Information about The Big Read program and the writing contest is at SBPLibrary.org/sbreads .

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.