Catonsville High Students Earn Honors in New York Times Contest

Some writers spend their entire careers hoping for recognition by The New York Times. For two Baltimore County Public Schools students, that recognition has come even before they begin their senior year in high school.

Out of 5,000 essays submitted to a New York Times/Learning Network Student Editorial Contest, one by Eric Vogt, an 11th-grade student at Catonsville High School, earned Top 10 distinction. Another by Hannah Llorin, also an 11th-grader at Catonsville High, received an honorable mention.

A total of 45 students received recognition as Top 10 winners, runners-up and recipients of honorable mentions.

Vogt’s “Cutting It Short” advocates for curricula emphasizing short writing assignments, and Llorin’s “The Murky Ethics of Athletic Prosthetics” opposes the use of prosthetics in high-level sports.

Sponsored by The New York Times, the first Student Editorial Contest invited students ages 13 to 19 to submit evidence-based argumentative essays of 450 words or fewer on topics of their choice.

Students submitted their essays in February and March, and a panel of eight judges selected the winners in April. In May, the Learning Network published the Top 10 winners’ essays.

The Top 10 winners’ essays are available a thttp://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/editorial-winner/. For more information on the Student Editorial Contest, visit http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/student-contest-write-an-editorial-on-an-issue-that-matters-to-you/.