Eligibility
Entrants must be either secondary or postsecondary students enrolled in at least one career and technical education course. Entries must be submitted between Feb. 1 and March 9. Winners will be announced by the end of March.

Categories

Persuasive essay (secondary and postsecondary): The essay should be formatted as an op-ed to your local newspaper. The objective of your essay is to inform and persuade the audience to your argument around the topic. The winning essays may be forwarded on to the local newspaper by ACTE.

Open Multimedia essay (all levels): Create a multimedia piece to inform and persuade the audience to your argument around the topic. Multimedia pieces are Web sites, digital brochures or short videos. Multimedia pieces should include links, incorporate concrete examples of your own CTE experiences in your school, job training and CTSO participation, and be suitable for sharing via social media and the Web. Students may post their submissions to the Web, YouTube or e-mail them to ACTE. Submissions may be shared through ACTE social media outlets.

Evaluation Criteria
The persuasive essay category will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Content
• relationship to topic  
• logically organized  
• clarity of message  
• expressiveness  
• references to current local or national news, events or studies on education, employment, etc. that tie with the topic.
• uses concrete examples to support arguments
• Technical Quality
• spelling, grammar, punctuation 
• in an op-ed format: 1,200 words max

The multimedia essay category will be evaluated on the following criteria: 

• Content
• relationship to topic
• logically organized
• clarity of message
• use of visuals (graphics, photos)
• expressiveness
• references
• uses concrete examples to support arguments
• references to current local or national news, events or studies on education, employment, etc. that tie with the topic.
• Technical Quality
• spelling, grammar, punctuation
• adheres to length guidelines:
• no more than two Web pages (linked together) for a Web site
• no more than three panels for a brochure (brochure may be printed on front & back)
• no more than two minutes for a video

The essays will be judged based on the criteria above. Judges will have final say, and entrants may not challenge or appeal.

Topic
The 2012 CTE Month theme is CTE: Careers Through Education. How do you feel CTE prepares individuals, including yourself, for a future career? Please include concrete examples of your classroom, CTSO participation and job training (if applicable) experiences as they relate to your career exploration and preparation.

Application Procedures
Each entrant shall submit the following:

1. One submission of a persuasive essay or a multimedia essay piece.
2. Entrants may only submit in one category.
3. The winners in each category will show how CTE has helped the writer and can help other students enter or make strides towards a challenging career field or postsecondary education.
4. Essays must be submitted as Microsoft Word documents, .pdf or links to digital multimedia content (a Web page, a YouTube or SchoolTube video, etc.).
5. Entrants must include a cover sheet that clearly states their name, address, phone number, e-mail address, school name, teacher’s name, school’s phone number and the category (either secondary or postsecondary).
6. Entrants may not include their name anywhere on the essay itself.
7. Essays and links to essays must be submitted via e-mail to essaycontest@acteonline.org.;
8. All entries become the property of ACTE and will not be returned.
9. ACTE will notify the winning entry only.

Award-Winning Essays

1. ACTE reserves the right to publish, reproduce, copy and display winning essays in any format, print or electronic.
2. ACTE will only notify the winner by telephone, regular mail or e-mail according to the information provided on their cover sheet.
3. The winning essays will be published and/or mentioned on the ACTE Web site, and winners will be announced in Techniques magazine.
4. The winner of each category (secondary and postsecondary persuasive essay and all levels multimedia essay) will receive $150.