TO: Fifth Grade Teachers
FROM: Sandy Lefkowitz, Literacy Chairperson
Broward County Retired Educators Association (BCREA)
RE: Fifth Grade Essay Contest, School Year, 2022-2023
The Broward County Retired Educators Association (BCREA) would like to invite your fifth grade students to participate in the Margaret Poppell Literacy Essay Contest
sponsored by the Florida Retired Educators Association (FREA).
The essay should be about the student’s experience or experiences with a grandparent or
grandparent figure. The 500 word essay can be written at school as a part of a class assignment or it can be an individual student task developed at home or at school.
Not every child must submit an essay.
All fifth grade classes may enter the contest or only the teachers who wish to participate may submit entries.
We hope you will support the contest and encourage your students to participate.
The guidelines are listed below:
1. This is an optional project.
2. Essays should be a maximum of 500 words, excluding a, an, and the.
3. The student must describe an experience with a grandparent or a grandparent figure.
4. The essay must reflect the ideas, vocabulary, or efforts of the student acting alone.
5. Adult participation is limited to proofreading and typing the final product. In class writing is strongly suggested.
6. The essay must have a detachable cover listing items in this order:
a. Title
b. Name of student
c. Name of teacher
d. Name of school
e. Name of county
f. Number of words in essay
7. Essays will be judged on originality, adherence to the topic, concrete ideas, and correctness of grammar, spelling and punctuation.
The contest would be an excellent way to combine a real-life experience with the writing curriculum. And there’s a prize too!
The local essay winner will receive a $25 gift card to Target.
The winning essay will be entered in the state-wide contest with a potential cash prize of $150.
The teacher will receive books to add to the winner’s classroom library.
The winner of our local BCREA Unit will also be invited to our May meeting to read the essay and join us for lunch. Parents and teachers will also be invited to the meeting.
Please email me to indicate that you have students who will be participating slef12343@gmail.com. Add literacy contest to your subject title.
A member of our local Literacy Committee will be happy to collect the school essays. The essays must be submitted no later than February 10, 2023 (but may be submitted earlier) in order for our judges to meet the deadline for submitting our local winner to the District and State Literacy Chairpersons.
If you have any questions, please contact me at 954-557-5817.
Thank you for your participation.
Sandy Lefkowitz
BCREA Literacy Committee Chairperson
