19 Springboro Students Selected To Be Published In Book

19 students  at Dennis Elementary and Springboro Intermediate are now published authors.  The students were selected as a part of a contest by the Young Writers group, an organization that was established in 1991.  There were a total of 143 student winners across the state that had their short stories published in a book called Spooky Sagas - Ohio Tales.

The winners from Springboro included Myna Ammula, Addison Appel, Bruno Astudillio, Matthew Cooper, Penelope Ellerbrock, Alivia Floyd, Josie Griffin, Anna Ho, Tristan Jetter, Sam Mazuk, Taylor Meyer, Abigail Minniear, Brielle Ombrello, Kendall Rogers, Edward Sclafani, and Aubrey Stiens. 

Deb Covey said she and another teacher had their students participate in the contest.  Covey said she has a group called Pencil Peeps and they participate as well.  There were about 55-60 Springboro students who participated in the contest.  "I am always excited to bring how ever many writing contests I can to the kids because they really thrive on that," she said, adding that it really helps them to improve their writing.

Covey said the students wrote very short stories around a half of a page in length.  Since this book had a Halloween theme, Covey said there were a lot of stories about zombies and ghosts.

In a normal year, the students would have received the books before the end of the school year.  "When COVID came about, everything was delayed so the books just arrived at the school,"  Covey said.  She said she passed them out to the kids and the students were very, very excited about it.   

Covey said there are always a few students who are hesitant about the writing contests, but she said she has some tricks for helping them get started.  "Some kids just have a really hard time finding that first sentence or the first thought that they need.  That's where the teacher comes in," she said.  

Covey said she conferenced with the students two or three times about their stories. She helps students with combining sentences, as well as making sure they have used correct capitalization and punctuation.  "I don't want to interfere too much because I want it to be creative...If I interfered too much, it's not going to be a story from their heart or their brain," she said.  

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