THE OVERTURE AWARDS ESSAY CONTEST 2012
“An Underground Railroad Traveler”
Eighth-grader Caroline Lembright Wins Essay Contest
CINCINNATI, OH – The Cincinnati Arts Association (CAA) has announced Caroline Lembright as the winner of its Overture Awards Essay Contest 2012: “An Underground Railroad Traveler.” Caroline, chosen by four judges who are professional writers/historians/teachers, will be awarded a $250 prize for her essay, “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
For the contest, thirty-five students submitted essays on the subject of the Underground Railroad, from the perspective of a young person their own age who might have traveled north to freedom via this system. Any Tri-state student in grades 6-9 for the 2011-12 school year was eligible for the contest.
Caroline Lembright is an eighth-grade student at Highlands Middle School in Fort Thomas, KY, where her advanced language arts class was studying the Underground Railroad. Ivy, the main character of Caroline’s essay, was inspired by women in Caroline’s life, as well as women in history. Through this piece, she conveys the strength and determination of not only those who made it to freedom, but also the horrors of slavery.
According to Caroline, “In a world where visual media reigns, great writing can be extremely impactful, and I hope to one day accomplish that. Writing to me is feeling brought to life. What you feel and what you make of those feelings is truly who you are. And that’s why writing plays such a large role in my life. I have always loved creative and poetic writing, and feel extremely grateful for this opportunity. Slavery is a subject that has always shocked and awed me. And I feel that through this experience I have better grasped the horror that made up the lives of many slaves who lived in the United States and around the globe in this period of history.”
Lisa Birkley, eighth-grade language arts teacher, and Kathleen Lemmons, teacher of gifted-and-talented students, teamed up to create a special unit that looked at the Underground Railroad in our area. “We did a great deal of preliminary research in the computer lab,” said Mrs. Birkley. “We used videos, writing journals, a novel, and even made a freedom quilt to try to simulate the experience. We also had a traveling trunk full of artifacts, which the Freedom Center let us borrow for a few days. The students worked on this unit for about four weeks, and the culminating event was the essay. They were all very interested in this time in our local history.”
Essay submissions were judged on the following criteria:
- Originality: the essay topic is approached with creativity and imagination.
- Quality of content: the essay is presented clearly and its material is well organized, well developed and accurate.
- Style: the essay has a clear structure with a title, introduction, body and conclusion. Paragraphs are used correctly, and punctuation, spelling and grammar are correct.
- Footnotes were not required, but a bibliography was highly recommended.
To read Caroline’s essay, visit
www.cincinnatiarts.org/essaycontest
ABOUT THE OVERTURE AWARDS
The Overture Awards – the largest locally run arts scholarship competition in the country – annually provides a $2,500 scholarship to six area high school students for education and training expenses, with 18 finalists each winning a $500 scholarship. This year, more than 500 students were nominated by their schools to compete in one of six artistic disciplines: Creative Writing, Dance, Instrumental Music, Theater, Visual Art or Vocal Music. The Overture Awards was developed to recognize, encourage and reward excellence in the arts among Tri-state students in grades 9-12. It also provides students an opportunity to share their talents and interests among their peers in a supportive environment outside of their individual schools.
Now in its 16th year, The Overture Awards was launched in 1996 by the Cinergy Foundation (now Duke Energy) and Leadership Cincinnati (a Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce program). The program is administered by the Cincinnati Arts Association, which operates and manages the Aronoff Center and Music Hall. The Overture Awards also relies on hundreds of volunteers from the community who help raise funds, adjudicate and manage the competitions, and nurture the program.
Founded in 1992, the Cincinnati Arts Association (CAA) is a not-for-profit organization that oversees the programming and management of two of the Tri-state’s finest performing arts venues – the Aronoff Center for the Arts and Music Hall – and is dedicated to supporting performing and visual arts. Each year, CAA presents a diverse schedule of events; serves upwards of 700,000 people in its venues; features the work of talented local, regional, and national artists in the Weston Art Gallery (located in the Aronoff Center); and supports the work of more than one dozen resident companies. Since the inception of its acclaimed arts education programs in 1995, CAA has reached more than 1.2 million students.
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