Local Letters for Global Change: A Pulitzer Center Writing Contest

The 2024 Local Letters for Global Change contest is open!

K-12 students: Make your voice heard this fall by writing a letter to a local elected representative that explains the global issue you want them to prioritize, shows how it connects to your local community, and proposes a solution. Through this contest, students can practice global citizenship, civic action, and persuasive writing, all while exploring the underreported issues that matter to them through Pulitzer Center news stories.

The Pulitzer Center wants to read and share your letters: tell us, and the world, what's most important to you. Read on for contest details.

Eligibility:

We welcome entries from all current K-12 students across the globe. Letters may be written in English and/or Spanish. Letters should address a topic within one of the Pulitzer Center’s five focus issues:

• Climate and Environment (Includes climate change, pollution, extractive industries, and more)
• Global Health (Includes health inequities, food security, mental health, water and sanitation, and more)
• Human Rights (Includes racial justice, gender equality, migration and refugees, Indigenous rights, and more)
• Information and Artificial Intelligence (Includes technology and society, misinformation, and more)
• Peace and Conflict

Prizes:

We will select one first place winner and up to four finalists for each issue category. First place winners will receive:

• $300 to support global community engagement in your classroom (prize distributed to your class teacher)
• Publication of your letter, photo, and bio on the Pulitzer Center website

Finalists will receive:

• $75 to support global community engagement in your classroom (prize distributed to your class teacher)
• Publication of your letter, photo, and bio on the Pulitzer Center website

All entrants will be invited to participate in a Pulitzer Center town hall event, held virtually in November, to share their solutions with other students from around the world.

Deadline:

Friday, November 15, 2024 at 11:59pm EST

Entry Guidelines:

1. Go to the Suggested Stories tab above and choose a story that gives you new information about an issue that matters to you. (All eligible stories are available at www.pulitzercenter.org/stories.)

2. Write a one-page letter to a local representative that answers the following questions:

1. What issue do you want the local representative to address?
2. Why is this issue important globally? (Remember to cite evidence from the Pulitzer Center-supported story! You can use additional sources to find evidence, too.)
3. Why is this issue important to your local community, and/or to you personally?
4. Why are you writing to this person? What power and/or responsibility do they have?
5. What do you want this person to do? Offer a solution, and cite evidence that your solution will be effective.

You do not have to answer the questions in this order, but your letter should answer all five questions. For support writing your letter, see the Resources for Teachers and Students tab above.

3. Submit your letter using the contest entry form. It will request some basic personal and contact information; the name and contact information for one of your teachers; and you can copy/paste your letter directly into the form.

4. Your representatives' contact information is available online. After submitting your letter to the Pulitzer Center, please consider mailing or emailing your letter to them directly!

Judging Criteria:

Letters will be judged using this rubric. Here are some guiding questions and tips from the Pulitzer Center team:

1. How can I explain this global issue and its importance to someone who is less familiar with it?
   • Before arguing for a solution, your reader has to understand the issue. How can you explain it to them concisely in a way that is easy to understand, and makes its importance clear? Use the Pulitzer Center news story as a resource as you summarize, and be sure to cite your sources. Are there facts, statistics, or quotes from the story that could help you explain the issue and its impact?
2. How am I connected to the global issue I am writing about?
   • Most students will respond to a news story reported from a city, state, and/or country different from their own. In your letter, share details of the news story you read, and explain how the underlying issues are connected to your own community. Are you or other members of your local community affected by the same issue? Do the actions of your community have an effect on the people and places you read about? Identify the big, systemic issue(s) in the news story, and make it clear how they connect to you locally and/or personally.
3. What solutions to this problem already exist?
   • Other people are probably working on this issue in your local community and around the world. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel! Consider advocating for a solution that has been effective before or is already in progress. You could explain how a solution implemented elsewhere could work locally, or how the work of people/organizations active in your community could be supported.
4. Who has the power to effect the change I want to see?
   • Your letter will be most effective if it makes it into the hands of a person who has power to implement the solution you’re suggesting. Learn about your elected officials and decide whose office should receive your letter. For example, if you’re writing about local education issues, you might write to a member of your school board. If you want to see state-level legislation passed, your state senator or governor might be the right choice.
5. What evidence have I provided to support my claims?
   • Your letter is making an argument: first, that your reader needs to know and care about this issue, and second, that your proposed solution will work. To make your arguments effective, offer evidence. You must cite at least one Pulitzer Center news story, but you can also cite evidence from other news sources, academic articles, reports by organizations and governments, your own anecdotal experience, and more.

Support for Preparing Students for the Contest:

Please navigate to the "Resources for Teachers and Students" tab above to find slide presentations to lead students through an introductory workshop and a worksheet to support students with writing their letters. (The worksheet can be used by students independently or with an educator's guidance. The slide presentation is designed for educators to facilitate.)

The "Suggested Stories" tab contains a curated list of stories suggested for different grade levels, sorted by focus issue.

Educators working with groups of 50 or more students can also schedule a free, virtual workshop facilitated by a member of the Pulitzer Center Education team. Visit the "Resources for Teachers and Students" tab above for more information about workshops.

You can find inspiration and models by exploring letters written by past contest winners. Here are the winners and finalists from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018!

If you are in the United States, you can look up your congressional representative using your zip code at this link. You are welcome to write to this person for the contest. You are also welcome to write to a different elected representative, such as a school board member, city council member, or attorney general. Consider who has the power to implement the solution you are suggesting, and search for that person's name and contact information online.

Schedule a Workshop with the Pulitzer Center Education Team

Would you like to schedule an interactive virtual workshop to prepare your students for the Local Letters for Global Change contest? We're partnering with organizations and educators to offer several free, virtual workshops for students and educators between August 1 and November 15, 2024. We are able to facilitate the following kinds of workshops:

• Professional development workshops for groups of ten or more educators
• Letter-writing workshops for groups of 50 or more students
• Workshops held in partnership with other organizations for an established group of participants (please reach out to discuss this possibility further)

If you would like to organize a workshop of this kind or have questions about the opportunity, please reach out to contest manager Hannah Berk at [email protected].

Students may write in response to any news story on the Pulitzer Center website. Start by choosing an issue that moves you, and click on the issue tile below to explore suggested stories for different grade levels.

CHOOSE YOUR FOCUS ISSUE

Don't see the issue you want to write about? It might be contained in one of the categories above! For example, Human Rights includes issues like racial justice, gender equality, affordable housing, migration and refugees, and much more. Information and Artificial Intelligence includes issues like surveillance technology, social media, and the spread of misinformation. You can also use the Pulitzer Center search bar to find more stories.

Para ver noticias en español, haga clic aquí y visite la pestaña "Historias sugeridas."