Student Writing Awards

Promising Young Writers Program

Students affected by the California wildfires are eligible for a deadline extension. Nominating teachers: Please notify NCTE by emailing studentwriting@ncte.org.

The 2025 Promising Young Writers awards are now closed. Nominating teachers will receive the results via email in late spring.

Promising Young Writers at a Glance

The prompt for the 2025 contest is now available.
Changes to the award that began with the 2023 cycle are can be found here.
Review Eligibility, Award Specifics, and Writing Instructions here.

Purpose

To stimulate and recognize the writing talents of eighth-grade students and to emphasize the importance of writing skills among eighth-grade students.

Schools in the United States, Canada, Virgin Islands and American Schools Abroad are eligible to nominate eighth-grade students. Nominating schools must be US accredited.
STARTING IN 2023: Participating students submit themed writing. Beginning with the 2023 contest, participants will no longer submit “best” writings.
Electronic submissions only.

Please email studentwriting@ncte.org with any questions.

Timeline

Early autumn: 2025 contest prompt will be released.

Until November 13: Present the prompt to your students. Encourage them to gather their thoughts and ideas and to write their first draft

November 13-December 15: Encourage your students to edit, to revise, and to finalize their drafts.

DEADLINE for All Submissions: February 15

*Late submissions will not be accepted.

Below are some exemplars of award-winning submissions from 2020. These students received a 97% or higher aggregate score from the judges who read their pieces and had high praise for the quality of writing.

Selena Chen (Judges said, “This is excellent work for an 8th-grade student – detailed, clear, strong voice. Really well done work.” And, “You’ve done an excellent job immersing readers into the moment with, as well as helping them to gain and understanding of, you. Your works are quite memorable, and are ones that readers will surely be able to connect to.”

David Yun (Judges said, “The BEST writing contains beautiful and vivid language to develop the relationship the speaker has with their sister. The THEMED piece brought tears to my eyes and chocked me up. Writing a letter to a natural place where the speaker bonded with family, most specifically his grandfather, was a perfect choice of genre.”

*These examples are meant to be used as inspiration to teachers and their students for the purposes of this award and to showcase the excellent work of these students. Please do not share or copy these students’ work improperly.*

Recipients of the Certificate of Recognition/First Class designation are listed by state below.

2024 Award Recipients

This year, schools nominated 177 students to participate in the Promising Young Writers Program. Students were nominated from 33 states and Puerto Rico, as well as Canada and South Africa.

Papers were judged on content, purpose, audience, tone, word choice, organization, development, and style.

*No First Class recipients

American Schools Abroad

Canada

Alabama*

Alaska*

Arkansas*

Delaware*

District Of Columbia*

Hawai’i*

Iowa*

Kentucky*

Louisiana*

Maine*

Mississippi*

Montana*

Nebraska*

New Hampshire*

New Mexico*

North Dakota*

Oklahoma*

Oregon*

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island*

South Carolina*

South Dakota*

Vermont*

Wyoming*

2023 Award Recipients

This year, schools nominated 146 students to participate in the Promising Young Writers Program. Of those, 56 were selected to receive the First Class designation, 58 received the Superior designation, 27 received the Excellent designation, and 5 received the Merit designation. Papers were judged on content, purpose, audience, tone, word choice, organization, development, and style.

*No First Class recipients

American Schools Abroad

Canada

Alabama*

Alaska*

Arkansas*

Colorado*

Delaware*

Florida*

Georgia*

Hawaii*

Idaho*

Illinois

Indiana*

Iowa*

Kentucky*

Maine*

Mississippi*

Missouri*

Montana*

Nebraska*

Nevada*

New Hampshire*

New Jersey

New Mexico*

New York

North Carolina*

North Dakota*

Ohio

Oklahoma*

Oregon*

Rhode Island*

Utah*

Vermont*

Virginia

Washington State*

West Virginia*

Wisconsin*

Wyoming*

2022 Award Recipients

This year, 116 students were nominated. Of that number, 66 received Certificates of Recognition and 50 received Certificates of Participation. Each student submitted two pieces of writing, which were read by national judges. Papers were judged on content, purpose, audience, tone, word choice, organization, development, and style.

*No winners

American Schools Abroad

Canada*

Alabama*

Alaska*

Arizona*

Arkansas*

California

Colorado*

Connecticut

Delaware

District Of Columbia*

Florida*

Georgia*

Hawaii*

Idaho*

Illinois

Indiana*

Iowa*

Kansas*

Massachusetts*

Mississippi*

Montana*

Nebraska*

Nevada*

New Hampshire*

New Mexico*

North Dakota*

Oregon*

Rhode Island*

South Carolina*

South Dakota*

Tennessee*

Texas

Utah*

Vermont*

Virginia*

Washington State

West Virginia*

Wisconsin*

Wyoming*

2021 Award Recipients

This year, 90 students were nominated. Of that number, 56 received Certificates of Recognition and 34 received Certificates of Participation. Each student submitted two pieces of writing, which were read by national judges. Papers were judged on content, purpose, audience, tone, word choice, organization, development, and style.

*No winners

American Schools Abroad*

Canada*

Alabama*

Alaska*

Arizona*

Arkansas*

California

Colorado*

Connecticut

Delaware*

District Of Columbia*