Power of the Pen Regional Champions
Congratulations to Birchwood’s 7th and 8th grade teams who won a team award and several individual and special awards at the Power of the Pen Regional competition. These students are coached by Lorraine Tzeng, Jennifer Seward, and Maysan Hadar.
Team Awards
Seventh Grade - 1st Place
Regional Sweepstakes Award (second year)
Individual and Special awards:
Seventh Grade
Joshua Gordon - 8th Place
Manya Raina - 1st Place
Round 2 - Best of Rounds - Haadeya Salman, “The Mission”
Round 3 - Best of Rounds - Ayat Jaffar, “Grandfather’s Farm”
Eighth Grade
Areesha Nouman - 5th Place
Round 1 - Best of Rounds - Areesha Nouman, “More Light”
Platinum Pen Award - Isabella Bixler, “Box Memories”
Platinum Pen Award - Isabella Bixler, “Baby Sitter”
Thirty-three schools participated in the Regional Power of the Pen Tournament hosted by Baldwin Wallace University. In total, 26 seventh graders and 92 eighth graders wrote three stories over the course of three rounds. Collectively, the Birchwood seventh and eighth grade teams won the Regional Sweepstakes Award for the second year in a row; Individual awards were granted to the top 12 writers in the two grades and to the best story of each round. Platinum Pen Awards were granted to stories that demonstrated exceptional quality and were eligible to be published in Power of the Pen’s “Book of Winners.”
Power of the Pen is an Ohio interscholastic writing competition where school representatives in teams of six demonstrate their imagination and writing skills. This is the 37th year that students of Ohio have had the opportunity to write creative narratives impromptu and advance from the district through the regional and state levels, individually or as a team.
“Birchwood students have been competing in the Power of the Pen competition since 1991,” said Lorraine Tzeng, a Birchwood language arts teacher and Power of the Pen coach. “The program coincides with our emphasis on a strong writing foundation sprinkled with creativity and imagination.”
The 7th grade team, those who placed in the regional competition, and recipients of the Platinum Pen Award are eligible to compete in the state competition taking place in May.
