[stylist] Youth writing contest

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

And there are youth, through no fault of their own, who aren't given the
opportunity to learn Braille, or learn it adequately; many of you can
attest to this. I whole-heartedly support Braille literacy, but I also
know how the system works, and it seems unfair to exclude kids, until
they are 18, from the division's writing contest because many are not
given Braille instruction in the first place.

Side note: To anyone (adult and youth) considering submitting to the
contest this year, make sure you use proper grammar and formatting, and
if you don't know, or aren't sure, look it up, ask someone. Braille user
or not, there's no excuse for improper grammar, though I suppose the
argument can be made that kids aren't taught this either today, smirk.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 11
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:22:32 -0600
From: "Robert Leslie Newman" <newmanrl at cox.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [stylist] Vejas, question about youth writing contest
Message-ID: <004301cccee2$82526370$86f72a50$@cox.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Vejas and/or other youth on this list:

Gee dude! I'm hoping to see one of your story's come in to our 2012
writing contest for youth. And recall, our youth contest requires both a
Braille hard-copy (hand embossed, like with a Perkins or by slate, no
use of an embosser), and as a word document attached to an email.

Our youth contest is all about promoting Braille literacy, and so the
hard-copy requirement. We want to see the quality of Braille that a
person can produce (meaning, we are encouraging quality of Braille
knowledge and use). And here is a thought as I am writing this to you
--- Tell me the strait of it --- it appears that once a young blind guy
gets proficient with the code, in reading and writing Braille, and once
the person gets a notetaker with a Braille display, they no longer are
interested in hand-"brailing out a longish document? (In part, I'm
asking because we are not getting many entries from who we think are
"the more experienced Braille users." Most entries are coming from the
elementary age group, in general from kids who are learning the Braille
code. (Yeah, we see some high school kids who are just now learning
Braille, or are saying they know it.) 

[We may need to open up a section of the youth contest to those who wish
to submit electronic entries, just like the adults are required to do
(no hard-copy print is accepted). After all, we do want to encourage our
blind youth to write!]