(Washington,
D.C.—March 15, 2016) Out of almost 2,000 letters submitted from New Jersey in
the 2015-2016 Letters About Literature contest,
High Tech High School received notice that twenty students had been selected by
judges for the final round at the state level, announced Dr. Joseph
Giammarella, Principal of High Tech.
Letters About Literature received almost 2,000 letters from New
Jersey students. After two rounds of
judging at the national level, seventy-four letters at the high school level qualified
for at least two more rounds of judging at the state level. Judges recognized twenty students from High
Tech High School out of these seventy-four letters to advance to the final
round of judging. The following students
have been recognized:
Bayonne
residents AnnMary Ibrahim, Mary Megali, Natalie Skibniewski, and Hannah Grace
Tan; Nicole Lee of Guttenberg; Harrison resident Amal Joseph; Tahlia Cantatore
and Natalie LoBue of Hoboken; Jersey City residents Antoinette Critelli, Alex
Kim, and Thi Ly; Andrew Tran of Kearny; North Bergen residents Sarah Bacha, Genesis
Cevallos, Cathryn Pace, Victoria Rivero, Stephanie Schwartz, Armando l. Alvarez
Suarez, and Zhixiu Zheng; and Eleanore Woodruff of Weehawken.
Letters About Literature, a reading and writing contest for
students in grades 4-12, asks each student to read a book, poem, or speech and
compose a letter to the author (whether living or dead) about the ways that the
author’s work affected that student personally.
Contest judges at state and national levels
choose from tens of thousands of letters gleaned from students all across the
country. The
2015-2016 Letters About Literature
contest, made possible by a generous grant from the Dollar General Literacy
Foundation, with additional support from gifts to the Center for the Book in
the Library of Congress, celebrates authors who have helped shape America and
the world itself.
