Have you ever joined or heard about the Art of Reading Books Contest? This contest may be so unfamiliar because most schools do not hold this event. Art of Reading Books Contest is a special event where students of Guyeong Middle School can express their thoughts and feelings and show their own abilities related to their artistic side about reading, writing, and books.

▲ Students make the book posters.

This Art of Reading Books Contest is held twice every year in summer and in winter. Also, students can enjoy a variety of activities such garland making, writing short novels and essays, making characters in the books using various materials like clay, designing the title of books, and making book posters. Moreover, in this contest, there are also lots of prizes. For example, the first prize winner can get a certificate and a huge amount of prize money, the second prize winner can get a certificate and a less amount of prize money, and the third prize and consolation prize winners can only get a certificate.

▲ the news papers that were made by students

The purpose of this contest is to try various activities and find or use students' abilities related to art and literature. Goo Ming Jung, a student in Guyeong Middle School, said that she really loves this Art of Reading Books Contest because all students can do various art and literature activities in a place of normal class lessons. And, she thinks that students can get pretty good effects in their artistic side and reading or writing through this contest. All students can find their unknown abilities and improve their own skills. The contest is like killing two birds with one stone. He added that the recent contest was so enjoyable since more and new activities were added. So, students could enjoy the contest more and get more favorable impacts by trying new activities. The purpose of the contest is achieved well according to the interview with Goo Min Jung.

Although there are favorable comments towards the Art of Reading Books Contest, there are also voices that said this contest should be changed. It is because it has a shortcoming, that every student has to participate in the contest regardless of their opinions. Moreover, some students said that the way to evaluate is so unfair because school teachers, not experts, evaluate their work. So, they said that teachers can have favoritism to specific students, and they evaluate subjectively.

This argument is still an argument, but most students in the school were quite satisfied with the event this month. Moreover, it succeeded to get good comments in spite of the worst situation by Covid 19. Like this, the Art of Reading Books Contest will be continually held regardless of Covid 19.

By Hye Jeong Yun