The Quill - Overview

The Quill is a writing competition in which teams of four students must create written products given a prompt from each of four text types.The Quill is an original competition developed in cooperation with the North Carolina Reading Association (NCRA). The middle school competition is 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 Cup Points.

Overview

Teams

Each The Quill Middle School Team is composed of up to four students; each school may send two Teams to The Quill Regional Competition. The Varsity team is comprised of students from grades 6-8. The JV team may include sixth and seventh graders. Each student on The Quill Team will compete independently by responding to a prompt from one of four text types. One student per prompt per team.

  • Argument
  • Informational
  • Narrative
  • Problem / Solution

Each The Quill High School Team is composed of up to four students. Each school may send two teams to the The Quill Regional Competition. The Varsity team is comprised of students from grades 9-12. The JV team may include ninth and tenth graders. Each student on the team will compete independently by responding to a prompt from one of four text types. One student per prompt per team.

  • Argumentation
  • Literary Analysis
  • Problem / Solution
  • Creative Writing

Competition

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

 

Regional and State Competition

Regional level competitions take place in each participating school. Students are presented prompts and required to respond in a proctored setting similar to an EOG test. Once the writing is complete, submissions are sent to NCASA and then forwarded on to judges who score them against the rubric. Top individuals and teams advance to the State Final where they are presented with a new prompt and create a new written product. Submissions are judged and results and awards are presented in the afternoon.

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 Region will advance to the State Final. At the State Final, the Team with the highest score will be declared the winner. Awards will also be presented to the student with the highest individual score in each text type at the State Final.

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 email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Phone: (919) 771 - 9272