In celebration of World Book Day, last 23 April, High School students at SJI International were invited to submit original short stories starting with the sentence “Times have changed so much that…”

Nearly 250 students participated in the competition, submitting stories written in Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Tamil and Vietnamese.

Grade 11 student Madeleine reflects on the experience:

“When the details about the World Book Day competition came out, I was immediately interested because I thought that it could be both a fun and creative way to practice and improve my Spanish. The only guideline we had was a word limit and also the story starter “Times have changed so much that…” I spent some time thinking about ideas that I could write about and ended up writing about home-based learning during times of COVID-19. I chose this because I felt that it would be a very relatable topic and a topic that was very appropriate and prominent these days.

Once written and submitted, the stories would be judged by both language and non-language teachers, alumni and parents. For me, it was quite nerve-wracking because I had no idea who would be reading my story, and even if they would like it, however, once sent in, it was out of my hands. From this experience, I learned many new vocabulary and grammar structures that I can use in my writing. However, some aspects were immensely challenging, such as keeping to the word limit and thinking of a plot that would keep readers engaged.

In the end, all 247 entries earned a Certificate of Participation; however, for me, the highlight would be winning a Certificate of Achievement. These were great ways to celebrate everyone who took the time and effort to write an original story.”

You can read all the winning entries here.