The UIL Creative Writing contest is designed to encourage creativity while helping students develop solid writing skills at an early level. The contest invites second grade students in Texas schools to express themselves on paper and mentally 'see' relationships between objects that can be tied together creatively. The simple exercise of learning to structure a story that has a beginning, middle, and an end can help form a writing foundation that lasts a lifetime and only gets better with time.
The format of the UIL Creative Writing contest is easy and fun! Each student is given a prompt with several captioned pictures. Then, students have 30 minutes to write an original story based on the pictures they have chosen. The stories must contain at least one of the pictured items, but it is not required that all items on the page be included in their story.
Hexco's Creative Writing Workbook is designed to explain the contest in terms that second graders can understand. It also offers tips on how to make your writing more interesting to readers and judges. The workbook includes 10 practice tests, lined pages for writing, and a study schedule.