Spencer Honors English: National Writing Contest Winners

(Photo submitted) Members of the Spencer Honors English program celebrate their national recognition.

Spencer High School's Honors English students have been named "Best Class" in the national writing contest sponsored by Penguin Books. The contest "Confessions of a Word Nerd" required students to submit personal essays of 1,500 to 3,000 words and correctly utilize 60 SAT vocabulary words. The Spencer class members - that consists of accelerated 8th, 9th and 10th grade students - wrote on a variety of topics including siblings, braces, wrestling trips, raising swine, voice changes, and marching band involvement. Most were humorous essays depicting the trials and fun of high school years. Contest organizers wrote, "We really enjoyed your class' essays, and have thus deemed you the "Best Class" in the 2008 essay contest! Your students were engaging and hilarious, and we laughed ourselves silly reading their essays."

The contest was based upon the book "Confessions of a Word Nerd," co-authored by Colleen Kinder, a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing of the University of Iowa. Review the book: "'Confessions of a High School Word Nerd' is a collection of entertaining essays by those who know the SAT best, the diverse Ivy Leaguers who mastered it. Here, 12 Harvard and Yale grads honestly recount wild, traumatizing and hilarious high school events on the path to the Ivy League, using 1,500 common SAT words in context. The words are bolded with the definitions at the bottom of the page, to help readers effortlessly memorize obscure vocabulary. From mortifying first kisses, vexing summer jobs and incompetent team captains, the essays are a fun, humorous way to study for the SAT."