Places to Publish for Gifted Young Writers

Gifted students need “real” audiences for their work. They benefit from seeing their words in print and finding others who have the same interest.

Figment is a place where young people, ages 13 and up, share their writing, connect with other people with similar interests, and discover new stories and authors. The website was started by Dana Goodyear, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and Jacob Lewis, the former Managing Editor at The New Yorker and Condé Nast Portfolio. It contains a variety of sections that will be of interest to young authors, including

• A place where students can post their writing and get feedback in the form of comments and reviews.
• Writing contests.
• Advice from adults who publish young adult books.
• Recommendations of recently published books for young adults.
• A forum where students can connect on a variety of subjects related to their writing.
• A blog that, among other things, contains interviews with published authors of books for young adults.

If your young writer is more independent, suggest that he submit his writing for publication without the feedback and interaction of a group. A Young Authors Guide from NewPages.com provides

• Updated lists of publications that accept submissions from young people, some from children as young as eight.
• A long list of writing contests, listed by month.
• Information about writing programs.
• A list of writing conferences.

Math Circles for the Gifted

Are you looking for meaningful enrichment for your math student? Do you have a young person who is capable of more in-depth math reasoning than is offered in the regular school environment? Do you have a youngster who is excited about mathematics and you want to encourage that excitement? Math circles may offer the stimulation that your student needs.

The programs place precollege students and mathematical professionals together in informal settings. Some math circles focus on high school students, while others focus on students as young as 5. There are also math circles for teachers to help classroom teachers learn to use high-level problems and questioning techniques.

All of these groups meet after school or on weekends in informal environments where participants work together on interesting problems. Some math circles prepare students for high-level competitions, and some avoid competition completely. The groups introduce members to deep mathematical ideas that are not normally covered in classrooms, and they encourage students to tackle tough mathematical questions for themselves.

This concept of study originated in Hungary more than a century ago and soon spread across Eastern Europe and Asia. It is widely believed that it is the presence of these circles that has enabled the youth of countries such as Russia, Bulgaria, and Romania to outperform the United States on average at the International Mathematical Olympiad. Only recently have math circles started in the United States.

To learn more, visit the website for the National Associationof Math Circles. At this site, you will find a list of existing circles; information about summer programs; and lots of resources, including a database of sample problems. There are some excellent videos that you will want to watch that demonstrate the hows and whys of the program. If you are not able to find a math circle in your area, you can read through the detailed tutorial on how to establish one. Math circles may be initiated by teachers, parents, or universities. Ambitious students may also get a program rolling.

Math circles are just one more of the many options available for able students. Never accept the idea that you are limited to the resources available in your immediate school community.

The Art of Problem Solving

If you are an advanced math student, teacher, math contest sponsor, homeschooling parent, or math mentor, you will be interested in the following information.

The Art of Problem Solving (AoPS) website was founded in 2003 to create interactive educational opportunities for avid math students. The website offers textbooks, online classes, and other online resources for the top middle and high school math students in the English-speaking world. AoPS is run by highly qualified specialists who have graduate degrees from some of the best schools in and out of country. Included among the website's many student users are winners of major national contests such as MATHCOUNTS, ARML, and the USA Mathematical Olympiad.

Bookstore

The bookstore on the AoPS website has several excellent features. For example, the bookstore offers online pre- and post-tests for each of the texts in the AoPS introduction series. This feature helps students evaluate their current skill set, and choose the most appropriate text level as they move through the series. The bookstore also offers many excellent books for math contest preparation. In addition, the bookstore offers recommendations for math materials for children as young as 2 years old.

Online Classes

Classes are designed for high-performing math students in grades 6-12. In these classes, students learn from instructors who have won national mathematics competitions and who have trained others to do the same. Detailed information about each of the instructors is provided on the site. Online opportunities are also offered for math students who wish to interact with others of their own ability.

Other Online Resources

Additional resources include the following:

• An online forum where students can chat about math and other topics.
• Free virtual classrooms called Math Jams that provide improvisational problem-solving sessions, reviews of major math contests, and informational sessions about prominent programs, college admissions, and other topics.
• Alcumus, a (currently) free, customized learning experience that adjusts to student performance in order to deliver appropriate problems and lessons. Alcumus includes more than 1,100 problems with solutions, more than 60 video lessons, and detailed progress reports. As a student gets stronger, Alcumus automatically provides more challenging material. Conversely, if the student is having difficulty with a particular topic, Alcumus provides additional practice problems.
• (FTW) For the Win!, an online multiplayer math game, based on thousands of problems from MATHCOUNTS, AMC, and other sources.
• A wiki that supports educational content that may be useful to students of mathematics, science, computer science, technology, and other problem-solving subjects.
• A resource section that has additional articles, books, and excellent Internet links.

Speech and Debate Competitions

Speech and debate competitions for middle and high school students provide opportunities to research real-world issues and to contemplate the answers to open-ended questions. These competitions improve critical thinking, communication skills, and self-confidence in the public arena.

There are several speech and/or debate organizations to consider. Even if your school does not sponsor these opportunities, their websites have great resources that can be implemented in the classroom or in family discussions.

• National Forensic League Debate and Speech Honor Society—This is the nation's oldest and largest debate and speech honor society.
• National Association for Urban Debate Leagues—This organization currently works with urban middle and high schools in school systems that have high percentages of people of color and low-income students. Urban Debate Leagues have proven to increase literacy scores, to improve grade-point averages, to increase high school graduation rates, and to produce high college matriculation rates.
• International Debate Education Association(IDEA)—IDEA develops, organizes, and promotes debate and debate-related activities in communities throughout the world.

Creative and Critical Thinking through Future Problem Solving

Teaching critical and creative thinking is vital to the future of our youth. The Future Problem Solving Program International (FPSPI) is a program that really hones in on this subject.

We all have problems we’d like to solve. Some people aren’t very good at math. Some people have nosy neighbors. Some people go to bed hungry at night. No matter how small or how big the problems are, we’d like to solve them. It’s hard to solve a problem, though, unless we understand the problem very well. Who is involved in the problem? What is the problem? When and where does the problem occur? Why does the problem happen? How does it occur? The first step in successful problem solving is defining and describing the problem.

This is just one type of thinking fostered by FPSPI. The program (for students in grades 4–12) stimulates critical and creative thinking skills and encourages young people to develop visions for the future through both individual and team activities. It nurtures global awareness not only through choice of topics, but by knowing that the same problems are being studied by over 250,000 students annually, including those from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, and the United States.

Curricular and co-curricular competitive activities, as well as non-competitive activities are offered.

Through FPSPI, students learn to

• formulate and attack complex, ambiguous problems
• analyze and better understand material
• improve in oral and written communication
• work together in a team.

You can get an idea of the scope of current and future topics by reading their descriptions at the program’s Web site.

Even if your student never participates in the formal program, the organization’s website contains good instructional materials for creative and critical thinking. Materials include both written offerings available for purchase and also links to other Web sites.

MIT OpenCourseWare for High School

More and more of the country’s best universities are making OpenCourseWare (free video and audio clips, animations, lecture notes, assignments, etc.) available online. MIT has taken this concept one step further and created Highlights for High Schools, where materials are featured that are most useful for high school students and teachers. Many wonderful resources are available in the areas of science, math, and the humanities that include study materials, courses, test preparation, labs, and competitions. Many of the materials will help students study for AP exams.

The site also has just plain interesting, free courses appropriate for gifted high school students, including a class that teaches how to design sets for theater and one on designing toys (both under the heading of Knowledge in Action: Build Stuff).

There are also high school courses created by MIT students such as Guitar Building; a course exploring Gödel, Escher, and Bach; and Combinatorics, a fascinating branch of mathematics that applies to problems ranging from card games to quantum physics to the Internet.

More Academic Competitions for the Gifted

Academic competitions can provide higher level learning for gifted students. (Check the index in the right-hand column of this blog for more competitions.)

• The National Geographic Bee—This is an educational program of the National Geographic Society. It is a nationwide geography competition for U.S. schools for grades 4–8, designed to encourage the teaching and study of geography.
• National History Day Contest— Students in grades 6-12 discover and interpret historical topics related to an annual theme. They produce creative and scholarly projects in the form of exhibits, documentaries, historical papers, or performances.
• National Spelling Bee—This is the one you've read about and seen in movies. It begins with a school competition and progresses to a national competition.
• Word Masters Challenge—This is a classroom competition in language arts for grades 3-12. The emphasis is on vocabulary, analogies, and analytical reading.

Although many competitions are initiated at schools, homeschoolers often group together to participate. Some competitions are also available to individuals.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of competitions. Many others are available—some that are well run and some that are not. Find out as much as you can about each competition or contest before entering. Some ways to find competitions are to

• Explore your favorite search engine on the Internet. Search the words "competitions" or "contests" and add the words of the subject in which you are interested (i.e., art, French, writing, etc.). You might even try adding the name of your city or state.
• Academic Competitions is compiled by the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University. It is organized by subject area.
• Book: Competitions for Talented Kids: Win Scholarships, Big Prize Money, and Recognition—This is a treasure trove of information on selecting, entering, and competing in national contests. It also features complete information on who to contact, how to enter, prizes, judging criteria, contest origin, significant dates, and tips from the contest organizers themselves.