Sewickley Academy Students Awarded a Gold Key and two Silver Keys for Writing


This month, three Sewickley Academy English students were recognized by the Pittsburgh Regional Scholastic Writing Awards for their writing skills.

Junior Linsey Szabo was awarded a Gold Key for her critical essay "Light and Dark," sophomore Mishon Levine earned a Silver Key for her poetry collection, and freshman Aditya Menon was awarded a Silver Key for his narrative essay, "An Afternoon in Thrissur." Linsey's essay will now advance to the national competition.

The students learned about the competition through the Senior School English Department, and, on average, took several weeks to write, edit, and perfect their pieces.

Gold Key winner Linsey’s piece focuses on social media and how it affects interpersonal relationships. She initially submitted the paper for her humor and satire class, and was encouraged by Senior School English Department Chair and teacher Mrs. Anne Russell, who really enjoyed the piece, to modify it for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. “It took around two weeks after turning in my regular class paper to complete this paper,” Linsey said. “It was challenging to be very concise and make my points clear. I was very excited to hear I had won an award because I had worked so hard on this piece.”

Silver Key winner Mishon submitted a total of five poems within one collection. “As someone who writes on the side, mainly for myself, not an audience, I had a lot of pieces floating around to pull from. The poems I eventually chose range from having been written in the beginning of 2017 to just two months ago,” she said. “However, it wasn't really that hard to figure out which ones I felt would work the best.” New to poetry writing, Mishon was surprised to learn she won an award. She was excited to discover that the stories she’s been illustrating for herself were able to resonate with an audience.

Aditya, who also won a Silver Key, chose a personal narrative talking about meeting his cousin who he hadn't seen for years. “My cousin and I used to have a rough relationship and meeting each other after so many years is mainly what the narrative revolved around,” he explained. “Writing a personal narrative was something that sparked my interest, mainly because I am a very observant person and being able to contribute all my observations into writing was a substantial factor for me.”

As a regional Gold Key winner, Linsey’s work has been submitted to the National Art and Writing Alliance for the national competition. Each year, according to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the Alliance partners with more than 100 visual arts and literary arts organizations across the country to bring the Scholastic Awards to local communities. Teens in grades 7–12 apply in 29 categories of art and writing. Last year, students submitted more than 330,000 works of art and writing to the Scholastic Awards.

Way to share your stories, Linsey, Mishon, and Aditya!

Read their award winning pieces.

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