On The Web
Featured Winners
How the work is judged.
There are three things that haven’t changed about The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and its judging process since 1923:
- Blind Judging: Our jurors do not know the identities of students who submit work to The Awards.
- Freedom of Expression: No work will be disqualified on the basis of its content.
- The Criteria: Originality, technical skill, and the emergence of a personal vision or voice.
What is Originality?
Originality is hard to define. We encourage our jurors to look for works of art and writing that, first and foremost, surprise them. Many of the works submitted to The Awards begin as classroom assignments. A functional definition of originality is work that goes beyond the classroom assignment and takes on its own reason for existing in the world. A pristinely rendered portrait will likely not win an award unless it innovates upon how a portrait can be drawn. Works of high originality challenge conventions, blur the boundaries between genres, and shift jurors’ notions of how a particular concept or emotion can be expressed. Our jurors are looking for works of paradigm-shifting innovation and originality.
What is Technical Skill?
Each year, we bring thousands of professional artists, writers, educators, and scholars together, with functional expertise in specific genres, to evaluate the skills demonstrated by students who submit works to The Awards. Technical skill is judged on how it is used to advance an original perspective or a personal vision or voice. Rather than being evaluated for specific skill proficiencies, students will be evaluated on how they used their skills to create something unique, powerful, and innovative.
What is Personal Vision or Voice?
We all know what the personal visions and voices of Awards alumni Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, and Sylvia Plath looked and sounded like when they became professional artists and writers. But what did their works look and sound like when they were teenagers? This is precisely the question we ask our jurors to consider during the judging process. It’s no coincidence that The Awards have identified some of the most important creative minds of the past nine decades. We are in the business of identifying the self-possessed, idiosyncratic voices and visions of teenage artists and writers.
Sponsors
