Student Creative Challenges for the 2024-2025 school year are now available on the ELA website; we hope you might be able to incorporate them into your planning for the coming school year.
For 2024-2025, we have decided to develop our Creative Challenges beyond students simply submitting texts to us, and have incorporated poetry performance, Book Bento, and Zine opportunities—allowing students to demonstrate their creativity in a range of ways!
Our fall Creative Challenge asks students to read, and listen to, poetry by Benjamin Zephaniah before writing their own poem (maximum 200 words) that discusses an issue of social justice the student feels passionate about. Once written, students must record themselves performing their poem: Poetry is not meant only for reading but also for performing! Benjamin Zephaniah was one of the UK’s most significant 20th century writers. He was a writer, dub poet, actor, musician, university professor, and campaigner for social justice in a variety of fields. Zephaniah was passionate about resolving injustice, issues of racism, and ethical food production. Find out more about the Poetry Writing and Performance Challenge.
The winter Creative Challenge requires students to create a Book Bento. Bentos refer to the convenient meal boxes used for lunch in Japan. Boxes are divided into several smaller sections, each containing one item of food, which come together to form a wholesome and complete meal. In this Creative Challenge, students must read either the ELA Big Read text, Aneesa Marufu’s The Balloon Thief, or another thought-provoking text and create a high-quality Book Bento image, which includes the book itself surrounded by items that clearly relate to the plot, characters, and/or themes of the text. Learn more about our Book Bento Challenge.
The spring will bring our Zines Creative Challenge. Zines are independently made and published magazines that can feature a variety of content styles, including short essays, stories, poems, interviews, fan fiction, comic strips, and other forms of visual art including collages, photos, and artwork. They usually have a small circulation and are produced using a copy machine. As a result, they are aimed at a very particular audience. Students must individually make an eight-page zine based on the plot, characters, and themes related to either the ELA Big Read, Aneesa Marufu’s The Balloon Thief, or another thought-provoking text. The zine must include a front cover page and seven pages of varied content related to the text of choice. Read further about our Zines Challenge.
An overview of the 2024-2025 Creative Challenges is available on the ELA website along with the ELA Writing Guide for students.
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