The 10th Annual New York Times Summer Reading Contest: June 14-Aug. 23, 2019
Every year since 2010 we have invited teenagers around the world to add The New York Times to their summer reading lists and, so far, nearly 50,000 have.
At a time when teachers are looking for ways to offer students more “voice and choice,” we hope our open-ended contest can help: Every week, we ask participants to choose something in The Times that has sparked their interest, then tell us why. At the end of the week, judges from the Times newsroom pick favorite responses, and we publish them here. It’s as simple as that.
Though our goals include some on many educators’ lists — helping students become more aware of the world and their place in it, learning how to navigate sophisticated nonfiction, and practicing writing for a real audience — we also just hope that students will realize that reading the newspaper can be fun.
As you’ll see in the guidelines below, they can choose literally anything they like that was published on NYTimes.com in 2019.
Interested? All the details you need are below, and this handy PDF summarizes them on one page.
Q. How does this contest work?
• Every Friday beginning June 14, we will publish a post here asking the same two questions: “What interested you most in The Times this week?” and “Why?.” You can always find that link at the top of this page since we’ll post it there every week.
• Teenagers can post an answer any week until Friday, Aug. 23, and contestants can choose from any Times article, essay, video, interactive, podcast or photograph published in 2019, on any topic they like.
• Every Tuesday starting July 2 we will announce winners from a previous week and publish their writing.
• To get an idea of the breadth of topics students have chosen in the past — from refugees and “post-truth politics” to accents and awkwardness — you can read the work of our 2017 and 2018 winners here, and our 2010-2016 winners here.
• Scroll down to find more details and tips, the most important of which are also on this one-page PDF.
• More questions? Here are some that have been frequently asked over the years, but please post anything else you’d like to know in the comments, or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com, and we’ll answer you there.
Q. What kinds of responses are you looking for?
A. We don’t care what you choose or whether you loved or hated it; what we care about is what you have to say about why you picked it.
If you don’t believe us, scroll through our 2017 and 2018 winners, or, via our old blog, view the work of winners from 2010 to 2016.
They have written on weighty topics like gender, race and identity, space exploration and 21st-century concentration camps, but they have also written on power napping, junk food, Beyoncé, Disney shows, running and bagels.
Whatever the subject, you’ll see that the best pieces year after year make both personal connections to the news and go beyond the personal to discuss the broader questions and ideas that the topic raises.
So whether you were moved by an article, enlightened by an essay, bowled over by a photo, irked by an editorial or inspired by a video, find something in The Times that genuinely interests you and tell us why, as honestly and originally as you can.
Q. What are the rules?
A. First, here is a one-page PDF summarizing the rules. Please share.
• We will post the same questions every Friday, starting June 14. Each week we will ask, “What interested you most in The Times this week? Why?” That is where you should post your picks (and reasons) any time until the next Friday. Then we will close that post to comments and open a new one with the same questions. That means that students can write in on any day until Friday, Aug. 23, at 7 a.m. Eastern when the contest ends. As soon as the contest starts, we will keep an up-to-date link to that week’s question at the top of this page.
• You can choose from anything published in the print paper or on NYTimes.com in 2019, including videos, graphics, slide shows and podcasts.
• Feel free to participate any or every week, but we allow only onesubmission per person per week.
• Our commenting system allows responses up to 1,500 characters, which is somewhere between 250 and 300 words.
• Make sure to provide us with the full URL or headline (for example, “How to Deal With a Jerk Without Being a Jerk” or https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/smarter-living/how-to-deal-with-a-jerk-without-being-a-jerk.html).
• The children and stepchildren of New York Times employees, or teenagers who live in the same household as a Times employee, are not eligible to participate.
• New for 2019: Our eligible age ranges have changed slightly in response to new data-protection rules in the European Union.
Students in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom must be between 13 to 19 years old to participate. However, if you are submitting from anywhere else in the world, you must be between 16 to 19 years old. Please see The New York Times’s terms of service for more details.
Q. Who will be judging my work?
A. The Learning Network staff, plus a team of as-yet-to-be-named New York Times journalists.
Q. When should I check to see whether my submission won?
A. Every Tuesday from July 2 to Sept. 3, we will publish a previous week’s winner or winners in a separate article you can find here. We will also celebrate the winners on Twitter and Facebook.
For more information, visit this link.
