Subchapter A: ACADEMICS (940)

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Section 940: HIGH SCHOOL LITERARY CRITICISM CONTEST

(a) THE CONTEST.

(1) Purpose. The Literary Criticism Contest challenges students to acquire a thorough knowledge of literary history and of critical terms, and encourages development of abilities through critically thinking about literary texts. 

(2) Format. The contest will consist of objective questions and an essay assessing knowledge of literary history and of critical terms, and ability in literary criticism. Students are tested over material on the reading list announced annually on the UIL website and shall also analyze literary passages from works not on the reading list.

(3) Essay. Contestants who fail to submit an essay shall be disqualified. The essay will be evaluated only for contestants with tied objective portion scores in order to break the ties for students ranking through sixth place. Although the essay section is required of all contestants, no points will be awarded.

(b) ENTRIES.

(1) Individual Competition. Each member high school may enter as many as six individuals in the district meet, which may be limited to a maximum of four individuals with district executive committee approval.

(2) Team Competition. A school shall have a minimum of three contestants compete in order to participate in the team competition. All four members of the winning team will advance to the next higher level of competition.

(c) QUALIFICATION.

Individuals, teams and wildcards qualify for the next level of competition according to Section 902.

(d) TIES.

(1) Individual Competition. All ties shall be broken through sixth place. If two or more contestants are tied, three judges who are not coaches of the tied contestants will rank the essays and give the higher rank to the contestant with the better essay based on judging criteria in the contest handbook. 

(2) Team Competition. Refer to Section 902 (h)(3)(D).