Dixon Students “Invest” in Writing

April 26th, 2019 /
Shauna Sprunger /
Dixon Middle, News, Schools, Secondary Schools

Dixon Middle school Students sat in anticipation as Mr. Starling went to go grab pizzas. Two students had just placed first and third in the statewide “Investwrite” competition and there was an awards ceremony about to take place.

Being able to write in a business setting is a skill that can become very useful later in life. Mr. Starling knows the value of this skill, but also understands how difficult it can be. Writing can sometimes seem tedious when there is little real world application in the prompts. In order to help combat this, Mr. Starling enters students in a financial writing competition called “Investwrite.”

In order for students to compete in the “Investwrite” competition, they must have some knowledge of the stock market so they are required to compete in the stock market game. With this game, students invest in pretend stock and play the stock game over a period of a few weeks. After the stock market game is over, students get the opportunity to enter in the “Investwrite” essay writing contest.

The essay contest is a competition where “Investwrite” will give a prompt and a deadline for essay submissions to students from all across the state. After the essays are written, they are distributed to volunteer financial professionals who read and evaluate them. Once all the essays have been read and scored, the winners are chosen and given awards.

The prompt for this year was to choose a CEO from a provided list, learn abut their personal and professional life and write an essay advising the CEO on how to best invest their funds.

This year, Mr. Starling’s class had students who won both the first and third place award. The winners, Adelaide Bryce (first) and Caitlyn Loosli (third), each received a certificate and a gift card in recognition of their accomplishment. The awards were presented by Utah State Treasurer David Damschen, who spoke briefly about the importance of investing before he delivered the awards. Once the awards were given out, there was some handshaking, some parent hugging, some congratulating and, to wrap it all up, some pizza eating

Both Caitlyn and Adelaide said they enjoyed writing the essays and felt like it helped them be better prepared for the future. Mr. Starling has done this for many years, but this year will be his last. At the end of the year, he will be retiring from teaching. It is all of the hard work and creative teaching that teachers like Mr. Starling do that help students truly grow and develop, not only as good writers, but as professionals in their future careers.