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Presenting the first ever TGS Literary Laureate Awards

We had the good fortune to be in Stockholm, Sweden, during Nobel Week late last year, which meant that laureate hopefuls from all over the world descended on our host city in hopes of claiming the top prize in one of the following fields:

  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Physiology or medicine
  • Literature
  • Economic sciences
  • The promotion of peace

During the month of December, our students worked diligently in their humanities classes to research the Nobel Prize categories. Each student selected a “most important” laureate in each of the esteemed categories, selecting from past winners like Albert Einstein, who won the prize for physics in 1921, and Martin Luther King Jr., who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Reading about the accomplishments of these revolutionaries and many others was an inspiring task, and sparked many of them to submit a creative piece for the first ever TGS Literary Laureate Awards. These awards, which were held on December 10th, served to honor those who find the rare stories that are within us all, and explore them through the written word.  The standards for the award followed the traditional Nobel criteria as we were looking for “works that moved in an ideal and profound direction.”

The awards were presented during the “TGS Nobel Award Ceremony,” which gave our students the chance to dress up, sip on non-alcoholic welcome drinks, dance a traditional nobel dance, and dine on an exact replica of the 1984 Nobel menu.

elliot and river

Elliot and River display their awards

The highlight of the evening was easily the handing out of the awards. As one of the judges for the event I can say the competition was fierce, and a wide variety of writing styles were skillfully written and submitted. 30+ students and staff members submitted pieces to be judged, and each piece was anonymously awarded a score between 1-3 by our panel. Each judge was then asked to pick their three favorite pieces and write a comment about each one. This was definitely the hardest part for me, as I had around six or seven pieces that I felt deserving of the award. Nevertheless, the judges made their decision, and the awards went to:

11th and 12th grade TGS Literary Laureate Award

  • River W. for “Pyromania”

10th grade TGS Literary Laureate Award

  • Elliot W. for Chasing the Dragon

Honorable Mention

  • 11th grader Danielle R. for An Insignificant Audience
  • 12th grader Ronnie T. for If You’re Lucky to be Alive
  • 12th grader Yuan K. for The Things I Carry
  • Language and Literature teacher Breanna Reynolds for Come to Be
  • 10th grader Jenna R. for Spero
  • 12th grader Cameron S. for Where I’m From

Read the pieces

A big thanks to all of our students and staff who submitted to the contest, and due to the success of the event, there will likely be other opportunities for our students to pen their hearts on their sleeves in the not-so-distant future. We’ve compiled the pieces into a PDF, which you can view and download below.

Click the ISSUU, Download the PDF

 

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