DELAWARE COUNTY READING COUNCIL
Chartered 1964
“Dedicated to promoting literacy in our schools and in our community”
Dr. Annemarie Jay, President, Delaware County Reading Council
DELAWARE COUNTY INTERMEDIATE UNIT
200 Yale Avenue, Morton, PA 19070
www.dciu.org/dcrc
To:
Public and Non-Public Elementary, Middle, and Junior High School
Principals/Contact Persons (who responded to letter of December, 2012) and
Delaware County Reading Council Members
Re:
GUIDELINES and PROCEDURES for the Dr. Nicholas Spennato Young Authors’
Project (2012-2013)
Thank you for your response to the Dr. Nicholas Spennato Young Authors’ Project, which is being
sponsored by the Delaware County Reading Council and the Delaware County Intermediate Unit. This
information is provided for those who have already registered on-line by the January 25th deadline.
GUIDELINES AND PROCEDURES
Participants: All pupils, grades 1 – 8, including special education, gifted, and English language
learners (ELL) pupils
Guidelines:
 Pupils may select for entry any pieces which they have written from the beginning of the
current school year. Only one entry per student is allowed. The entries may not have been
part of another contest. All writing is to be completed in school. Pieces should not go home
for any reason.
 Writing of compositions is to end February 17, 2013.
 Teachers may suggest topics appropriate to interest/age levels of their pupils.
 Modes: Writing entries should be PROSE ONLY: narrative, informational, or persuasive.
(Poetry will not be read by the judges.) Entries must be original efforts that are written at
school by the pupils who submit papers.
 Editing: Teachers should edit the papers for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization. Because of this, the domain of conventions will not be scored.
 Revising: No one should assist a pupil with the revision of the paper with regard to focus,
content, style, or organization. The work should be the student’s work only.
 Formatting; All papers must be typed (a traditional 12-point font is required) and double
spaced. Papers will be rejected if they are (1) not double spaced, (2) hand written, (3) contain
pictures, or (4) are printed front to back.
 Length: Not more than three (3) pages, double-spaced with a one inch left margin. Papers
longer than three (3) pages will not be judged
 Dictated Stories: Because the council deems them too difficult to judge fairly, dictated entries
WILL NOT be accepted, except in the case of physically handicapped pupils. If the papers
are dictated, DICTATED should be printed at the top of the entry form.
 Rubric: The Domain Scoring Rubric will be used to score the writing pieces. Using this
rubric, the final entries will be judged on (1) Focus; (2) Content; (3) Organization; (4) Style.
The teacher may wish to review with the students the criteria in each category that is used in
scoring the papers.

Submissions that do not follow guidelines will be discarded.
Procedures:
 Include the appropriate identifying information in the upper right hand corner of the
student’s entry: Student’s Name
Grade
School Name
 Place the title of the piece in the center of the page just below the identifying information.
 Use only the DCRC entry form (included with these guidelines). The form should be
attached to each submission. Do not create another form. This form is the only place where
the category of the writer (Regular Education, Special Education, Gifted, or ELL) should be
identified.
 PLEASE BE CERTAIN YOUR ENTRIES CAN BE REPRODUCED CLEARLY.
 Final entries will not be returned. Make copies of the final entries before submitting them.
 Submit the correct number of entries per grade level and category:
Regular Education: Grades 1 – 8
Special Education: Grades 1-8
English Language Learners: Grades 1-8
Gifted: Grades 1 - 8
Submit 2 entries per grade per building
Submit 2 entries per grade per building
Submit 2 entries per grade per building
Submit 2 entries per grade per building

Mailing the school’s entries: Papers of school winners for each grade are to be submitted by
February 22, 2013 to: Dr. Nicholas Spennato Young Authors’ Project
c/o Rosemary Fowler
122 Longview Drive
Springfield, PA 19064

The school’s contact person for the Young Authors’ Project must submit the Check List for
Final Entries on the next page.
The awards will be presented at the Dr. Nicholas Spennato Young Authors’ Conference in the spring.
Details about the conference will follow.
Should you have any questions, please contact Sheila Bell by email (sheilambell@yahoo.com) or call Dr.
Spennato, 610-353-9636.
Revised 11/7/11