Power of the Pen


Power of the Pen is an interscholastic writing league founded by Lorraine B. Merrill in 1986. It is a non-profit creative writing program for students in grades seven and eight in the U.S. state of Ohio.

Participation

Power of the Pen is exclusive to the state of Ohio, having no competition at a national level. Over 80 school districts compete, each starting off with teams of twelve students, six from each grade. A writing coach is penalized if this number is not met..

Qualification

In most schools, students who want to join the Power of the Pen team participate in one or more tryout sessions, in which they are given a prompt that they must base an essay or short story within 40 minutes. After the allotted time, each story is given to the coach, who evaluates the writing and chooses students who they think are best for the team based on their writing skills.
The teams compete in three different tournaments: a District, Regional, and State tournament. Based on where their schools are located, teams will participate in separate District and Regional tournaments throughout the state. As the team progresses, more and more members may be eliminated based on their scores in the previous tournament's submissions.

Format

Tournaments

;Districts
; Regionals
; State

Identification

During a tournament, each Power of the Pen member receives a four-digit number, which they are to use as identification instead of their names to prevent potentially biased judging. The first two digits are letters, remaining consistent throughout the school's team. The third digit is specific to the student's grade, and the final digit is based on the alphabetical order of students from that school/grade.

Prompts

Each round consists of one prompt. Neither the writers nor the judges know what that round's prompt is going to be, and it is very rare for the writer to have ever even seen it before during practice sessions at school. As soon as the prompt is written down in a place for all in the room to see, the writer has 40 minutes to write a narrative that has relevance to or includes the prompt. Some team coaches encourage writers to set aside about 5 minutes to think up a rough outline of the beginning, middle, and end. The details are filled in and improvised as the student writes. Finished copies are turned into the judge.

Scoring

Each student has at least one score and rank per narrative. These items are both very different, and frequently confused with each other.

Score

The writer's score, also known as his or her Quality Points is a numerical system used to establish the quality of the narrative.
On your carbonated writing paper, the judge will show your score using the points above, but they will also circle a number between one and six. One being superior, which is the highest you can receive; six being the lowest score which would mean merit.
A note on the official Ballot states: An award of 100 quality points indicates the Judge's belief that the paper should be considered as a "Best Response" to the prompt. A score of 94-100, in Rounds 1-3, indicates the belief that the Contestant is Finalist Caliber.

Rating

A scale of 1-6 is used in each room, as there are only 6 writers at most. A rank of 6 represents the most ill-addressed to the prompt narrative, whereas a 1 represents the best and most creative of the six writers. Two writers may not receive the same score. Also, if one contestant has better rank points than the other, than he or she must also have better quality points.
Much confusion is usually related to the difference of the two. If, for example, a person was awarded a "1" on their narrative; he or she still could have earned a low score of 80 or so. Earning a 1 only means that the response to the prompt was better than the other five and the story held higher quality.

Finalists

Each tournament has winners who have scored higher than other students. The larger the tournament, the stiffer the competition.
; Districts and Regional
; States
are allowed to participate in the final Power Round of Writing. This is then used to determine
the winners. The top students win plaques according to their place. Best of Rounds, Best of the Best, and Best Response awards are rewarded as well.

Best of Round

There is a Best of Round award given to the one person who all the judges agree had the best response to the prompt out of the entire grade's submissions. There are three forms of this award.
; Best of Rounds
; Best of the Best
; Best Response
; Director's Choice