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Two Oakville students were recognized by the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA) for excellence in writing. Along with forty-three other students from publicly funded Catholic schools across the province, these students received the Young Authors Awards for submissions in English and French.
OECTA Halton Elementary unit
Meagan Lacey from St. Bernadette Catholic Elementary School and Rawan Kahwaji from St. Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Elementary School wrote plays for the competition.
While Lacey's play is titled The Mystery of the Broken Vase, Kahwaji's submission is named Getting Stuck as a Spy was NOT in the Script. The first entry was for grades 7-8, and the latter was for grades 5-6.
In The Mystery of the Broken Vase, the script is set in the Anderson house where three kids, Jason, Mae and Lily live, and kickstarts on a Sunday morning. Kajwaji’s script begins with Director Smith initiating a backstage conversation during the rehearsal of a play. All the winning entries, including the plays of the Oakville students, can be read here.
OECTA Halton Elementary Unit
OECTA represents 40,000 plus Kindergarten to Grade 12 teachers in Ontario's publicly funded English Catholic schools.
For the Young Authors Awards, students are asked to write poetry, short stories, plays and non-fiction every year to showcase "the high caliber of writing and critical thinking happening in our classrooms."
The winners were selected from the 260 entries at the provincial level, which in turn were picked from thousands of entries from across the province at the local level.
Twelve entries were submitted from Halton Catholic District School Board for the provincial competition, including three submissions from Oakville.
Submissions which must be at most 3,000 words, are first screened at individual schools and sent to the local chapter.
"We ask that the schools send in one per category. Then we meet at our unit office as a committee and decide on the local winners. These top entries, in turn, get sent to the provincial level," said OECTA Halton Elementary Unit's President Tara Hambly shared, outlining the process of picking the local winners.
Hambly added that the process begins pretty early in the school year, reminding people of the local Young Authors competition. While the local competition is held in March and revealed to all members through the spring publication of the unit, the provincial event occurs in June.
