Interscholastic Activities Creative Writing

• Interscholastic Activities in Creative Writing creative tools image by Albert Lozano from Fotolia.com

  Many states in U.S. feature a creative writing portion in their statewide interscholastic tournaments. Often, committees provide students with a writing prompt and ask them to compose a story within an alloted period of time. Schools sometimes pay fees to participate in the tournaments and then prepare students during the year with specialized classroom materials.

University Interscholastic League

• This organization, founded by the University of Texas and supporting interscholastic events since 1909, hosts a creative writing contest each year for grade 2 students, as of November 2010. The aim of the contest is to encourage students to develop writing skills from a young age. During the tournament, students are given a series of pictures and asked to write a story that describes at least one of the pictures. They will have 30 minutes to complete the story.

Power of the Pen

• Power of the Pen, originally developed in 1986 for seventh and eighth graders, is a non-profit educational organization supporting interscholastic creative writing programs for students in Ohio. The program involves statewide competitions as well as competitions between districts and regions. Power of the Pen also strives to aid teachers in the classroom by providing in-class instructional aids. Schools pay annual fees to participate in the events and to receive the instructional aids that prepare students for the competitions.

Private Schools Interscholastic Association

• PSIA holds interscholastic tournaments among private schools in Texas for students in grades 1 through 8. The creative writing portion is only available for students in grades 1 and 2. Up to three students may be admitted from each school. Similar to the UIL competition for public schools, the PSIA competition asks participants to write a story based on five captioned pictures. Entries that earn the gold medal for first place may be published in "Ready Writing and Creative Writing Handbook for Elementary and Middle Schools."