Writing Skills Earn National Honors for 3 Apple Valley, Eastview Students

Two juniors and one junior are among only 274 students in the nation to receive an elite writing award from the National Council of Teachers in English.

Apple Valley's Mitchell Dawson and Parker King-Fournier and Eastview's Anna Underhill were honored as part of the 2012 National Achievement Awards in Writing. They received Certificates for Superior Writing from the council, according to a press release from District 196.

The award is based on writing samples they produced earlier this year, and students must be nominated by their English teachers to participate in program, according to the press release. Each nominee submitted two samples of writing to a panel of judges. One sample of any genre could be drafted and revised over time as an example of a student’s best writing. The other sample, an essay based on a theme selected by the Achievement Awards Advisory
Committee, was written by the student during a supervised, 75-minute writing period.

The student writings are judged by a team of English teachers chosen from throughout the students’ home state. Judging is based on quality and presentation of ideas, clarity about the subject and audience, effective and imaginative use of language, among other criteria.

The National Achievement Awards in Writing program was established in 1957 to encourage high school students in their writing and to recognize publicly some of the best student writers in the nation, according to the district. NCTE submits the names of Achievement Award recipients to colleges and universities. Students receive a certificate and cards highlighting their achievement to attach to their college application forms.

Three other students in School District 196 also received the award. The other winners include Kaitlin McCoy and Vaibhav Sharma of Eagan High School and Carly Kuran of .