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2020 artwork contest
- Applicants are asked to create an original piece of art that showcases the theme "Coming to America."
- This contest is open to students in all K-12 grade levels.
- Please submit your entry in a PDF with "Artwork Contest" listed in the subject line to education@citizenshipcounts.org
- Please include your full name, address, phone number and the name of your schooland grade level in the body of the email.
- The deadline to submit artwork is Monday, November 30, 2020.
- The Grand Prize winner will receive a $100 Visa gift card and the runner-up will receive a $50 Visa gift card
- With your permission, the winning selections will be showcased on our website and in our social media postings.
2020 writing contest
- Applicants will submit a one-page essay or poem on the theme "Coming to America."
- This contest is open to middle school and high school students.
- Please submit your entry in a PDF with "Writing Contest" listed in the subject line to education@citizenshipcounts.org
- Please include your full name, address, phone number and the name of your school and grade level in the body of the email.
- The deadline to submit essays is Monday, November 30, 2020.
- The Grand Prize winner will receive a $100 Visa gift card and the runner-up will receive a $50 Visa gift card
- With your permission, the winning selections will be showcased on our website and in our social media postings.
student and educator surveys
Since our inception in 2008 we have been committed to providing our curriculum and educational resources free of charge to schools across the country. In return we ask that you have all of your students complete this brief one-minute student survey. It helps us measure your students’ academic, as well as personal growth through utilization of our curriculum.
In addition, we would be most appreciative if all educators who implemented the Citizenship Counts program would complete our short two-minute survey. We rely heavily on feedback from you as educators to help us enhance our program and ensure that we continue to meet your educational requirements and needs.
All survey data for students, educators and administrators will always be kept confidential. Thank you in advance for your participation as your feedback is crucial to our success.
october educational feature: snow by julia alvarez
Our first year in New York we rented a small apartment with a Catholic school nearby, taught by the Sisters of Charity, hefty women in long black gowns and bonnets that made them look peculiar, like dolls in mourning. I liked them a lot, especially my grandmotherly fourth grade teacher, Sister Zoe. I had a lovely name, she said, and she had me teach the whole class how to pronounce it. Yo-lan-da. As the only immigrant in my class, I was put in a special seat in the first row by the window, apart from the other children so that Sister Zoe could tutor me without disturbing them. Slowly, she enunciated the new words I was to repeat: laundromat, cornflakes, subway, snow.
Soon I picked up enough English to understand holocaust was in the air. Sister Zoe explained to a wide eyed classroom what was happening in Cuba. Russian missiles were being assembled, trained supposedly on New York City. President Kennedy, looking worried too, was on the television at home, explaining we might have to go to war against the Communists. At school, we had air raid drills: an ominous bell would go off and we'd file into the hall, fall to the floor, cover our heads with our coats, and imagine our hair falling out, the bones in our arms going soft. At home, Mami and my sisters and I said a rosary for world peace. I heard new vocabulary: nuclear bomb, radioactive fallout, bomb shelter. Sister Zoe explained how it would happen. She drew a picture of a mushroom on the blackboard and dotted a flurry of chalk marks for the dusty fallout that would kill us all.
The months grew cold, November, December. It was dark when I got up in the morning, frosty when I followed my breath to school. One morning as I sat at my desk daydreaming out the window, I saw dots in the air like the ones Sister Zoe had drawn random at first, then lots and lots. I shrieked, "Bomb! Bomb!" Sister Zoe jerked around, her full black skirt ballooning as she hurried to my side. A few girls began to cry.
But then Sister Zoe's shocked look faded. "Why, Yolanda dear, that's snow!" She laughed. "Snow."
"Snow," I repeated. I looked out the window warily. All my life I had heard about the white crystals that fell out of American skies in the winter. From my desk I watched the fine powder dust the sidewalk and parked cars below. Each flake was different, Sister Zoe had said, like a person, irreplaceable and beautiful.
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We are a 501(c)(3) organization that welcomes all levels of donation, whether it is a one-time gift, a monthly donation, or the establishment of a matching gifts program.
