Young Artists and Writers: An Award to Gain Recognition for High School Student Writers and Artists
“The nation’s longest-running, most prestigious recognition program for creative teens”
Image from: https://perpich.mn.gov/2020-national-scholastic-art-writing-awards/
Art & Writing Awards - Why submit?
For creative individuals, awards are a great way to have existing pieces of art or writing receive recognition. They are also incentives to make new pieces, but they develop and grow the person’s existing skills. These awards not only help towards academic goals and awards, but they push young writers and artists while giving them praise for their work. Art and writing competitions are excellent ways for high school students to gain confidence in their work and push themselves creatively.
There are hundreds of organizations that give creative high school students opportunities to submit their pieces into competitions, but few compare to Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. For young writers, there are 10 different categories for submission, so there is bound to be a category for almost every writer. There are currently 16 different art categories, covering a variety of media and genres for artists seeking to submit an artwork for judging.
Scholastic Art and Writing Awards
Scholastic Art & Writing awards were founded in 1923, and for the past 100 years, they have been inspiring and recognizing creative teens. In the century since they were founded, they have recognized thousands of students, Sylvia Plath and Andy Warhol both being alumni and past award recipients.
M.R. Robinson, the founder of Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, created the prestigious awards in hopes of continuing to fuel the creativity in young people for generations. “[Scholastic Art & Writing Awards] is a service of more value, in our estimation, to open avenues of expression to young people before the springs of imagination have run dry under the standardizing pressure of adult life, and to ensure to a wide group of future citizens, regardless of vocation, a sense the power of independent thought and an appreciation of the beauty and wonder of existence.”
According to PRNewswire, “More than 260,000 works of art and writing were submitted by teens from U.S. territories, Canada, and every state in the nation. Works by 40,000 teens received regional recognition, and nearly 2,000 works earned national awards.” Making Scholastic Art & Writing awards one of the most prestigious and large awards for creative teens.
Eligibility
Scholastic has stated that the eligibility for the award is any teen in grades 7–12, age 13 and up, residing in the United States, U.S. territories or military bases, or Canada. Teens may enter work that was created this past spring or over the summer.
The entry fee is $10 per individual entry and $30 per portfolio. For a step-by-step process on submitting entries, you can find more information on the website. The process is simple, consisting of creating an account, paying the entry fee, and submitting your best work.
How the awards work
Students are given awards at a national and regional level. The recognition they receive is through awards, exhibitions, and publications by Scholastic. The Scholastic Art & Writing website explains how the process is determined:
All entries are first considered regionally for Gold Key, Silver Key, Honorable Mention, American Voices Nominee, and American Visions Nominee awards. These are presented to students along with celebration ceremonies and exhibitions in each region.
All entries receiving Gold Key are automatically considered for National awards: Gold Medal, Silver Medal, and scholarship awards.
More details on awards can be found in the Scholastic Art & Writing Website.
Writing Awards
The writing awards consist of 10 Categories, those being:
Critical Essay.
Dramatic Script.
Flash Fiction.
Humor.
Journalism.
Novel Writing.
Personal Essay & Memoir.
Poetry.
Science Fiction & Fantasy.
Critical Essay, Journalism, and the Personal Essay & Memoir are great for non-fiction writing, each with their fair share of submissions every year. For fiction writing, the Dramatic Script, Flash Fiction, NovelWriting, and Science Fiction/Fantasy awards cover more than enough writing categories for submission. Apart from the prose categories, there is a poetry category as well.
Deadlines for submissions in the Writing category vary by region, but most fall around the beginning of December and late November.
With the recognition that can be achieved regionally and nationally, submitting to writing awards can be a great step for many students for turning their love or hobby for writing into a stronger and more formidable skill that can be gained from while still nurturing their passion for it.
For students curious in a category, the Scholastic website offers a gallery for each category with past winners. This can serve as inspiration, motivation, and an idea of what the baseline for each category is.
Art Awards
There are 16 categories for the art awards, covering every possible medium for artists to submit their pieces to and gain recognition from. There is everything from Architecture and Design, to Film & Animation, Fashion, and much more. Few programs compare to the variety of categories for submission that Scholastic offers.
The full list of all 16 categories is:
Architecture & Industrial Design.
Ceramics & Glass.
Comic Art.
Design.
Digital Art.
Drawing & Illustration.
Editorial Cartoon sponsored by The Herb Block Foundation.
Expanded Projects.
Fashion
Film & Animation
Jewelry
Mixed Media
Painting
Photography
Printmaking
Sculpture
Stepping away from just traditional media and categories of art, the Scholastic Art awards provide an opportunity for artists, allowing them to delve further into new territories of art they haven't seen before.
With plenty of opportunities for possible regional or national recognition, having works displayed in galleries or published can be a significant step in a student’s art journey. Whether or not they plan on pursuing art professionally, these awards are definitely worth pursuing for creative teens.
Advice for submission
All submissions are judged by the quality of the artwork or writing, Scholastic pledges that entries are selected for awards without knowledge of the student’s gender, age, ethnicity, or hometown by some of the foremost leaders in the visual and literary arts. Many of the jurors choosing award recipients are Scholastic Alumni themselves.
Scholastic Art & Writing has the criteria being judged on their website, where you can look for more in depth information. However, when applying and creating the submission, it is important to remember these key things.
Originality & Personal voice
The jurors will be looking for work that displays originality and a creative idea. Aim for making something that is authentic to yourself and your beliefs. Inspiration in other art is to some extent normal, but there are strong Plagiarism and Copyright guidelines on the website, which are worth taking a look at. However, strongest pieces will be those that emanate the originality of the artist.
They also look for the message and the emergence of a personal voice is an important criteria for the submission. A piece that is authentic and one that the artist or writer has taken lengths to see the message through will score higher. Stay true and try your best to put your touch into your art or writing.
Skill
Scholastic refers to “skill” more broadly, referring to craftsmanship and detail but also critical thinking and the way an idea is developed. Creativity is a skill that is also largely considered.
I hope this overview of Scholastic Arts & Writing will help any prospective applicants in their submission journey, or encourage new applicants. Best of luck!
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