CBSE Budding Authors program

CBSE Budding Authors program will give a boost to creative writing skills in Indian kids. Earlier in 2021, CBSE had launched the Reading Mission in collaboration with Storyweaver for 2021-23. An extension of this Reading Mission, introduced on the second anniversary of NEP, is the Budding Author’s program.

Table of Contents

The CBSE Budding Authors program (for creative writing) is meant for the students of class 5 to class 10.
By class 5, students have a fairly good vocabulary and can express themselves creatively through their writing.
Because of this initiative of the CBSE board, eligible students will get a chance to display their creative writing work on a digital platform and get a wider audience.

What is the Purpose of the CBSE Budding Authors Creative Writing Program?

Learning to Read and Read to Learn. The National Education Policy (NEP) introduced in 2020 created a lot of hope for educational reforms.

Also read: Ways to develop reading habit

The new education policy promotes active readig habits in children so that they become lifelong learners. The NEP aims to teach languages in a fun, lively and interactive way. Creative writing is an extension of this endeavour. Students can write and express their ideas creatively in the form of short stories.

So, essentially learning to read and write, is the key to further learning. Anybody has to love to read and write to move ahead in the structured formal education.

Also read: Budding Authors Guide to Write Story

Who can participate in this creative writing program?

Students in these three categories can write their unique short stories and submit them to publish on the digital platform.

Which are the three categories for participating in the Budding Authors program?

1st category is for grades 5 and 6. Students can write stories between 500 to 600 words.
2nd category for grades 7 and 8, with stories between 600 to 900 words.
3rd category is for grades 9 and 10, with stories between 1000 to 1500 words.

How can students be a part of the Budding Authors program?

This information is derived from CBSE Circular No. Acad-88/2022, Date: 17th August 2022.

Also read: How to Edit Short Story?

Phase 1

The first phase of the Budding Authors program is to be conducted by schools in the school premise
1 Teacher from the school will oversee and coordinate the event.
Begin with sharing information about the writing activity with all the students of the school.
The teachers and students of CBSE schools can register for the program through the CBSE Reading Mission Platform https://cbseacademic.nic.in/ and access storybooks in Hindi and English language.
The teachers will encourage students to read at least 7 stories from the school library or the stories available on the CBSE reading mission platform.
The students must get 1 week to read these seven story books that will inspire them to write.
Subsequently, students will write their stories during school hours in English or Hindi language. This will be a contest.
Schools will assess and evaluate the stories written by their students and shortlist two students in each category. These students will participate in the next level of the program.
The schools will submit the information of their qualifying student names in this form link of the CBSE.

Also read: Visual Prompts for Narrative Writing

Phase 2

The registration and onboarding of the participating students for the second phase are from 16th September to 30th September.
The schools have to register the names of 2 qualifying students from each category at the CBSE portal.
There can be a maximum of 6 students per school.
The coordinating nodal teacher can facilitate the registration of these students on the portal.
The students participating in 2nd phase will get unique login Ids from the CBSE portal link when they register.
As soon as the students complete their registration and get their log in ids, their second phase of the program would begin. They can read some reading assignments provided on the portal for inspiration.
The registration for the second phase would only remain open from 16th September to 30th September 2022.
Story entries in Phase 2 will be judged by experts in the field and help will be provided in editing the final version of the story.
Stories will be selected by experts at the national level in each of the categories and published by CBSE as a collection of short stories.

Also Read: What is Fiction and Nonfiction?

The Contest for Budding Authors

The students have to complete some reading assignments with some writing tips given on the CBSE portal. Using these writing tips as a starter, students can start writing short stories.
The CBSE Budding Authors Program team will organize a webinar for the participating students. This webinar discussion will focus on developing writing skills. Schools will receive an email on their official email id, giving details of the webinar date, time and link.
The students can then write story, edit and submit their final entries.
All the participating students will get a Certificate of Participation through the school email id.
CBSE has given some terms and conditions for the phase 2 participating students.

Terms and Conditions for Participating Students

This information is based on details provided in Annexure III of the CBSE Circular No. Acad-88/2022, Date: 17th August 2022.

The school has to ensure that student’s short stories are original and unpublished.
Plagiarism checks is a must and certified by the school Principal before winners are declared in phase 1.
Students can write short stories in a variety of genres and styles as provided in annexures I and II.
Phase 2 of the Budding Authors program will be on the Storyweaver platform.
There is no payment for participation or writing stories.
The short stories submitted by the students on the Storyweaver platform under the Budding Authors program of CBSE will be under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY 4.0 licence ).
The student author will have the copyright of the story and CBSE will be the first to publish it.
The short story submissions will be judged by CBSE based on the rubric provided in annexure II of the circular. So, the story will have to be original, readable and have literary merit.
Literary merit means the story must have story elements, a plot, a theme and a writing style.

Who are the supporting partners of this creative writing program?

This program of CBSE is in two phases, with partner agencies. Storyweaver, an initiative of Pratham Book Publication, has partnered with the CBSE for implementing this creative writing program. This program is in conjunction with two more agencies, namely, the Central Square Foundation and National Book Trust.

Central Square Foundation, an NGO, also works for promoting equal educational opportunities in low-income areas. The National Book Trust is branch of government body and around since 1957. They publish low-cost books in English and various Indian languages. They also organise book fairs and exhibitions to promote books and reading.

About Pratham books

Pratham Books is a children’s book publisher (non-governmental organisation) that won a literacy award from the Library of Congress in 2017 for its work to promote the joy of reading in places that were deprived of it. Several places do not have reading material for kids and therefore kids go through their childhood without experiencing the joy of reading story books.

Also read: How to improve reading comprehension?

Pratham books publish the best quality storybooks for kids in many Indian languages. They have great illustrators and writers who do a great job. So children from low-income groups get access to quality books and can read in their mother tongue. Pratham Books have a network of volunteers who do storytelling and provide access to a library of books to these children. This publication house has been around for more than fifteen years.

About Storyweaver

Storyweaver is an online platform of Pratham books, that provides open-source multi-lingual books for kids of all age groups. The books on this platform have open license books that you can use for reading, sharing, downloading and printing too.

Apart from books, you can also download images and upload your unique illustrations so other people can use them. You can create your own stories, and translate them into your native language too.

Conclusion

This creative writing “Budding Authors” program initiated by CBSE board will surely go a long way in building writing skills in students. Children will learn various elements of stories, text structure, story sequence, story map, paraphrasing, what is plagiarism, giving credit, etc, because of this activity.

Participating in such programs will greatly benefit students and build their learning, literacy and digital skills.