Two ACS Students Win WordMasters Awards

Two Arlington Christian students recently won honors in this years WordMasters Challenge, a national competition for high school students requiring close reading and analysis of many different kinds of prose and poetry.

In the second meet held in December 2005 junior, Danielle Henry, placed among the 172 highest scoring juniors in the entire country. ACS senior, Ryan Cunningham, earned honorable mention for high achievement. More than 55,000 students from 46 states entered the meet. Arlington’s participation in WordMasters was headed up by Mrs. Jane Edwards from our English Department.

The WordMasters Challenge offers students an opportunity to analyze passages and acquire critical thinking skills. Students read a wide variety of challenge materials, from short fiction by Eudora Welty or John Updike to poetry as old as Shakespeare. Classic essays and modern writing is also scrutinized by the students. All of the passages use language skillfully to convey layers and shades of meaning not always apparent to students on a first or casual reading.

Like the questions on the verbal S.A.T. in English Literature, and the Advanced Placement exams, the questions posed by the WordMasters Challenge ask students to recognize the emotion and logic about a piece of writing. After completing a Challenge, classes are encouraged to talk about the tests and the answers to the multiple-choice questions. The students are also given additional topics for open-ended discussion.

Arlington students will participate in two more WordMasters in the coming months, and medals and certificates will be awarded in June to those students who make achievements in the course of the year.