Dixon Public Schools is encouraging students to get creative for the annual young authors contest.

The contest, led by Madison Elementary, accepts writing and cover art submissions from kindergartners to eighth graders to publish in a student book that will be on the shelves at all district school libraries. The 2024-25 book features stories from 25 students in second, fourth, fifth and sixth grades.

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Madison teacher Leah Meeks displays some submissions Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025. Graphic novels are very popular formats from the students. (Alex T. Paschal)

“To capture that moment in time” is really special. “It’s a cool thing for families to bond over,” Madison School teacher Leah Meeks said in an interview with Shaw Local.

Meeks and another Madison teacher, Melissa Guthrie, are the two teacher sponsors of the contest who handle the submissions and judging process, Madison Principal Joey Sagel said.

DPS has held the contest for several years. It was on “hiatus for a while” before restarting around 2015, Sagel said.

“We’ve seen it [participation] start to fall off a little bit, but we’re working on ways to promote it,” Sagel said.

Teachers will encourage their students to participate, and some kids are also encouraged at home, he said.

One problem is just that kids aren’t reading or writing as much, Guthrie said.

The 2024 Nation’s Report Card shows that literacy rates are declining in grade school students nationwide. The NRC only collects data from fourth, eighth and 12th grade students.

But in Illinois, students performed better in English language arts in 2024 than they did in 2022 and 2023, according to the 2024 Illinois Report Card. The 2025 Illinois Report Card will be published Oct. 30.

For the DPS contest, writing submissions can be any genre, such as poetry, nonfiction or short stories. In recent years, the most popular choice for students is graphic novels, and some kids go all out, writing multiple chapters of a story, Sagel said.

For teachers, reading those submissions is encouraging, especially when they see techniques used that have been taught in class, Meeks said.

It shows “they’re really listening,” Meeks said.

The submissions are scored by a group of four to six advanced English literature and composition high school students, Sagel said.

The winning submissions are put together in a book in the spring and an award ceremony is held in the fall, Sagel said.