The Quill is a writing competition in which teams of three students must create written products given a prompt from each of three writing styles: Argument, Informational and Narrative.The Quill is an original competition developed in cooperation with the North Carolina Reading Association (NCRA) and is completely aligned with the new Common Core Standards.

Participation

The Quill is a component of the NCASA Scholastic Cup. As an NCASA-hosted event, only NCASA Member Schools may participate in The Quill and earn Scholastic Cup Points.

Overview

Teams

Each The Quill Team is composed of up to three students; each school may send one Team to The Quill Competition. Each student on The Quill Team will compete independently by responding to a prompt from one of three writing styles:

• Argument
• Informatonal
• Narrative

Tournament

Players will be presented with a prompt from their assigned writing style. Students will then have 90 minutes to create their best written response.

Judging

Entries will be judged awarding points for content, organization, and style, with more weight given to content and organization. Judges will be Language Arts teachers and other writing experts with experience in grading writing. The scores for all students on a Team are combined to generate a Team score.

Winners

The top teams from each District will advance to the State Tournament. At the State Tournament, the Team with the highest score will be declared the winner The Quill Competition. Awards will also be presented to the Student with the highest individual score in each topic at the State Tournament.

Resources

• The Quill Rubric

• Competition Rules
• NCASA Release Form

• Sample Prompts

Visit the Quill section of our site:

More Information

If you have any questions, or if you would like more information about The Quill Competition, please contact:

Leon Pfeiffer
Executive Director
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phone: (919) 771 - 9272