Contest Rules

You can read the contest rules here. The contest is open to middle school, high school and college students. Youth can work by themselves or in groups, as part of a class, club or after school program, or independently.

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Specifications for Print Submissions

Print submissions should be less than 1000 words and should relate to one or more of the themes of Courageous Rhode Island. The best projects will tackle important topics including developing media literacy, celebrating free speech, countering disinformation, and preventing division and radicalization.

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Print submissions can take the form of news stories, op-eds, short stories or even poetry. But whichever topic you choose to cover and format you use to communicate your message, your writing should show off your effort in creativity as well as your perspective on how active listening, kindness and compassion can help us bridge the divides that are harming our communities. 

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Judges & Criteria

Written work will be reviewed by a panel of expert judges and evaluated against other submissions from students of the same level of education--so middle schoolers will be competing against other middles schoolers and so on. And these judges will not just look at technical achievement, but also the works' connections to the contest's themes, their clarity and originality. 

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Artist Statements

And in addition to your submission, you'll be asked to write a ~300 word artist statement in which you talk about the hard work you put into your writing. For example, you might answer the following questions:

1. Why did you chose this topic?

2. What creative decisions did you make?

3. What impact do you hope to have?

Judges will also review these statements, looking for student who demonstrate real effort and are thoughtfully reflecting on how their project might do some good in their community. A video demonstrating how to write an artist statement can be found here. 

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