2018 Sejong Writing Competition
Winning Entries
first place - Aidan Choo
second place - Gabe Foulk
third place - Luke Eckler
honorable mentions
Essay
Adult and senior prompt: An Appointment with His Brother by Yi Mun-yol
Although it was written in 1994, Yi Mun-yol’s An Appointment with His Brother is still highly relevant today, particularly with North Korea’s almost continuous presence in international news headlines. What does the novella show you about North Korea, its culture, and its people that is different from what you imagined from the media coverage of North Korea? What does it tell you about the complex issue of reunification and the potential problems it raises for both North and South? Given what you learn from reading the novella, how would you describe its underlying central theme? Use examples from the text and from the media to illustrate your points.
Adult
first place - Lucy Robertson
second place - Sarah Watanaskul
third place - Lauren Place
Senior
first place - Isabella Cho
second place - Bertina Kudrin
third place - Owen Ming Kong Hawes
Junior prompt: Read a Korean folktale and write about one of three topics — a) your interpretation of the folktale and its creation, b) why you disagree with it, or c) which character you relate to the best.
Junior
first place - Luke Park
second place - Adam Kakuk
third place - Kaitlin Cobb