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History of the Student Writing Contest
The Stephen Leacock Student Writing Contest was first introduced to
the Secondary Schools in 1976. Our Archives show that the purpose of the
competition, as outlined at that time, was "to encourage high
school students in their writing, to recognize publicly some of the best
student writers in our City and to promote understanding of the Leacock
writing technique."
The requirements were as follows:
1. It should be a minimum of one thousand words in length
2. It should be of a humorous or satirical nature.
3. It should, for its subject, focus on some local topic -
politics, society or some aspect of small town life.
The Award was offered until 1990. during those sixteen years, the
mandate did not change, but the prize money was raised from $50 to $100.
In 1990 it became apparent that the quantity and the quality of
entries did not warrant continuing with the contest unless we were
prepared to expend a great deal of time and effort on marketing and
promotion. Discouraged, organizers felt they did not wish to continue
with the competition and there was no one willing to pick it up and
carry on, at that time.
We believe that the change in the school curriculum
contributed largely to the lack of and the poor quality of the entries.
Composition as an element of the English Course fell by the way when
emphases was placed on the production of essays and the introduction of
the Independent Study units discouraged teachers already over loaded with
marking from adding another element to the course
Now all schools have optional Creative Writing Courses and
in the fall of 2000 we felt the time was right to try again to encourage
the writing of humour, not only in the Secondary Schools but the Community
Colleges as well. The competitions exceeded our expectations!
This wonderful response ensured the continuation of the contest.
It has continued to grow not only in quantity but also in
quality. With the help of
our sponsors, Thor Motors of Orillia and Sun Media (Orillia Packet and
Times) we have been able to increase the prize money offered our winner
and extend the contest to include monetary awards for our second and
third place finishers.
We
thank all the Ontario teachers who encourage their students to take part
in this cultural experience and hope they will continue to assist us in
making humour a part of their students lives
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