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Campus Middle School for Girls is extremely proud to announce our students’ extraordinary achievements in this year’s Letters About Literature in Illinois competition.
Two of the three state winners this year are CMS students: Lena Miller for Level I (Grades 4-6) and Leyla Cohen for Level II (Grades 7-8).
All sixth grade students in Ms. Giermak’s class who entered the Level I competition were recognized with Honorable Mentions or better. Even though CMS students made up only 1.1% of the 1115 Level I entries statewide, we made up 20% of the Finalists, 7% of the Semi-Finalists and 2% of the Honorable Mentions.
Seventeen seventh grade students from Ms. Hogan’s class entered the Level II competition, representing just under 1% of the 1708 entries. CMS students represent 10% of the Finalists, 7% of the Semi-Finalists and 1% of the Honorable Mentions statewide.
This is an unprecedented achievement for CMS students, and is especially poignant in the wake of Ms. Giermak’s passing earlier this year. As all of her students will attest, Ms. Giermak worked tirelessly to foster a lifelong love of reading in her students, and devoted a great deal of time in class and after school to help sixth grade students prepare their entries in the Letters About Literature contest.
Letters About Literature in Illinois a statewide reflective writing competition sponsored by the Illinois Secretary of State and the Illinois Center for the Book. The program invites students in grades 4-12 to write a letter to an author (living or dead) of a book, story or poem that was personally meaningful to them. State winners receive a $200 cash award, and teachers of winning students also receive $100 to purchase books for their school library.