High School - ANALYTICAL READING for HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

ANALYTICAL READING for HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS:

The WordMasters Challenge

           The WordMasters Challenge is a national competition for students in grades 9-12 which encourages close reading of many different kinds of prose and poetry. The contests are held in your school four times a year, with as many of your students participating as you choose. Your 10 highest scorers will constitute your school “team,” which can match itself (without ever leaving your classroom) against similar teams from all across the country.

           Texts for the Challenge can range from short fiction by John Updike or Eudora Welty to poetry as old as Shakespeare’s or as recent as Margaret Atwood’s, and to essays as classic as E. B. White’s or as current as a Time Magazine opinion piece by James Poniewozick. Though the texts vary widely in voice, subject, tone, and length, they have one thing in common: style. All use language skillfully to convey layers and shades of meaning not always apparent to students on a first or casual reading. And they all reward the careful rereading and attention to style that our Challenge questions encourage.

Do you want to learn more about the contest mechanics? Click here.

Do you want costs and other enrollment information?       Click here.

Would you like us to mail you a list of sample texts and sample questions from past high school Challenges?      Click here to send us an email message. [Please be sure to include your postal (not email) address and to indicate that you are interested in the high school Challenge.]

Do you want to know why you should consider fitting The WordMasters Challenge into your curriculum? Read on:

            Teaching students to read sensitively and insightfully is probably the most important job of an English teacher. It’s no accident that the verbal SAT I, the Sat II in English Literature, and the Advanced Placement exams in both English Language and English Literature all require students to answer detailed questions about short texts. Attentive reading and sensitivity to language are among the most important skills students acquire in school.

            Of course, students usually regard their SAT and AP exam experiences as painful and frustrating. They never find out which questions they answered right, which wrong, and they never have the benefit of a class discussion of all that was complex or confusing—or possibly even delightful—about the selected passages. The WordMasters Challenge is different. Because this is a classroom activity, not a college-entrance exam, it’s a real learning experience, not just a high hurdle. After completing a Challenge, classes are encouraged to talk about the texts and the answers to our multiple-choice questions. We also suggest additional topics for open-ended discussion and/or written response.