(Washington,
D.C.—March 15, 2016) Six High Tech freshmen whose letters had been submitted in
the Letters About Literature contest
have received Distinguished Honors by judges in the final round at the state
level, announced Dr. Joseph Giammarella, Principal of High Tech High School.
Letters About Literature had 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. Originally, the judges had selected twenty High
Tech High School freshmen from these seventy-four letters to advance to the
final round.
The
following High Tech freshmen, however, have been singled out for Distinguished
Honors: Bayonne’s Natalie Skibniewski, who wrote to Madeleine L’Engle, the author
of A Wrinkle in Time; Nicole Lee of Guttenberg,
who composed her letter to J.K. Rowling; Kearny’s Andrew Tran, who wrote his
letter to Ray Bradbury, the author of the classic Fahrenheit 451; and North Bergen’s Sarah Bacha and Genesis Cevallos,
both of whom composed letters to Rick Riordan (The Heroes of Olympus series), and Zhixiu Zheng, who wrote her letter
to author John Green of Paper Towns fame.
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.
