Wooster Middle School Students Compete at State Tournament

Four Wooster students, two eighth graders and two seventh graders, competed in the 2023 State Tournament for Power of the Pen:

Maru Yang (7th grader, bottom left) Claire Jeon (7th grader, top left) Madison Beckham (8th grader, bottom right) April Lee (8th grader, top right)

More than 2,500 writers participated in the 2023 Power of the Pen Tournament, and only 472 were invited to the State Tournament at Ashland University.All State Qualifiers were asked to respond to three writing prompts which they had not previously seen, and they were limited to 35 minutes to rite a narrative based upon those prompts.Maru Yang finished with a rank of 35th in the State of Ohio, the top 1% of middle school writers, after she advanced to a fourth and final round which only allowed thirty minutes to craft a story for a prompt which she had not previously seen. Chelsey Porter, Head Coach of the Middle School and High School Writing Club, said, "Our students` dedication to the written word is so inspiring, and we are thrilled to watch these writers hone their creative skills."  Assistant Coach, Mike Sexton, added, "We are  proud of our students' courage to compete and  thankful for the supportive community of writers in our school district." All four Wooster writers won recognitions in both District and Regional tournaments, and they all ranked in the top 7% of writers in Ohio.