2 Students Win National Gold Medals for Writing

Avery Watkins '20 and Ariana Thornton '24 have been awarded national gold medals by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, establishing their literary works as among the most outstanding in the nation this year.

 

Watkins and Thornton join a roster of national Art & Writing Awards recipients that includes Sylvia Plath, Lena Dunham, Joyce Carol Oates, and NCS alumna Katie Mitchell '11, as well as Ken Burns, Truman Capote, and Robert Redford. The awards were first introduced in 1923.

 

Watkins was honored for her critical essay "Do You Have an 'Alex,' " which began as an assignment in her Writing Seminar class. Thornton's gold medal recognized her poem "Where I'm From," written for her 8th-grade English class.

 

They were among 16 students of D.C. schools to earn gold or silver medals. Another was Sammy Rhee '21 of St. Albans School, who won two silver medals.

 

Watkins and Thornton qualified for the national competition by winning regional Gold Key awards last month from the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. They will be guests of honor at an awards ceremony in New York, scheduled for June, and their works will be now considered for publication in two Scholastic annuals, the National Catalog and The Best Teen Writing.

 

Congratulations to Avery and Ariana!