TEMPLE, Texas — Temple High School's student literary and art magazine is getting national recognition.
The magazine, known as "The Wildflower", has been recognized as a Superior magazine by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) for its 2023 edition.
According to Temple ISD, the 2023 edition of The Wildflower received its Superior rating as part of the NCTE's Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) contest.
This was the first edition of the magazine published since the magazine was restarted last school year, said Temple ISD.
According to the district, schools from 46 states and five countries nominated a total of 375 student magazines in the contest at the middle school, high school and higher education levels.
The Wildflower was reportedly one of only 14 student magazines from across the state of Texas to be recognized in the contest.
“It wasn’t at the front of my mind because we submitted last May, but I was very excited to find out,” said Laura Betik, faculty advisor for The Wildflower and an English teacher at Temple HS. “I was still kind of processing it when I started getting congratulatory emails. It was a lot of hard work, so I am very proud of my students. It was really their vision and wanting this to happen that helped get it off the ground and made it all possible, so I am happy to see their hard work pay off. One of our stated goals is to foster a culture of literary appreciation and art appreciation for all our students.”
Temple High originally produced The Wildflower from around 1970 to 2002, according to TISD, before bringing it back in the 2022-2023 school year due to student interest.
The magazine staff reportedly worked with English and visual arts teachers on assignments to help generate submissions to the magazine.
All students were able to submit written or visual pieces to the magazine in a variety of genres, said TISD.
Rima Sikka, a senior at Temple High who served on the editorial staff for The Wildflower last year before taking over as editor-in-chief for this year's edition, says the recognition means a great deal, and she is excited to apply the lessons learned to this year's magazine.
“It means a lot because we put in so much work last year and to see that pay off with this recognition is very rewarding,” Sikka said. “It gives you a lot of confidence and really motivates you for this year. I have always had an interest in literature and the written word, and I hope to pursue literature in college and maybe even major in English, so I definitely plan to stay involved with it.”
According to TISD, the REALM program publicly recognizes excellent literary magazines produced by students with the support of their teachers. TISD says REALM is designed to encourage all schools to develop literary magazines celebrating the "art and craft of writing".
Schools across all 50 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, Canada and American schools abroad, are reportedly eligible to nominate magazines to the contest.
For more information on the REALM Program, including this year's recipients, visit this link.
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