Quest for the Quill
Summary of the Contest
Quest for the Quill is an annual writing competition at AoPS Academy that occurs during the first three quarters of the academic year. Every year, each campus’s language arts program competes with the other Academies across the country in a race to win the Golden Quill Trophy. The better language arts students do on their class writing projects, the more progress their campus makes on the game board.
The first campus to reach the Golden Quill at the center of the game board will become the Quest Champions and receive the prized Golden Quill Trophy, which can be pridefully displayed at their campus for all to see.
There’s something in it for individual students, too! The students with the highest writing project score in their course will receive a dazzling Quarter Champion medal, and those with the highest average writing project score in their course across the first three units will be rewarded with the larger, more brilliant Quest Champion medal.
However, Quest for the Quill isn’t just any writing competition – it’s a multiversal campaign organized by the mysterious Guild of Enchanted Cartographers. This organization’s goal is to locate, seek out, and recover lost artifacts of knowledge scattered across the sprawling multiverse of stories. The Guild’s members wield extraordinary abilities, changing reality through the power of words. But the Guild is divided, and there are just a few members left. They need the best and the brightest students at AoPS Academy and elsewhere to build their language arts skills and join them in the quest for lost knowledge.
As each campus progresses through their quest, they will receive special messages from the Guild to test students’ skills in the form of puzzles.
The more dimensions a campus’s piece visits, the more puzzles the Guildmasters will send. When a student successfully solves a puzzle, they can return it to their campus to receive a prize from the Guildmaster. If students manage to conquer all these challenges and their campus wins the Golden Quill Trophy, they will be on step closer to earning an invitation to join the Guild!
FAQ
Who can participate?
Any student enrolled in a language arts class automatically participates in the competition. However, students enrolled in a course other than language arts are allowed to solve the puzzles for a prize.
When does the competition start, and how long does it last?
Quest for the Quill starts at the beginning of the academic year and ends after the third quarter.
How do students participate?
Students participate in Quest for the Quill by submitting their writing projects at the end of each quarter. Once all of the LA instructors at a campus have submitted the scores for the writing projects, the campus will automatically know who the Quarter or Quest Champions are.
What are Quarter and Quest Champions?
A Quarter Champion is a student who has the top writing project score in their course across all sections of the same course at their campus. At a minimum, there is 1 Quarter Champion per course per unit (it’s possible there are ties, so there may be more than 1 Quarter Champion per course).
A Quest Champion is a student who has the highest average writing project score in their course across the first three units. This is the highest distinction that a student can attain in the competition as there are only 7 Quest Champions on a campus per year (one for each LA course).
How are writing projects scored?
LA instructors score writing projects at the end of each quarter using an extensive online grading rubric that enables them to calculate their students’ scores reliably and granularly.
How does my student win a medal?
If a student is a Quarter or Quest Champion, their instructor will reward them with a medal during class.
How do students know if they are a Quarter or Quest Champion?
Quarter and Quest Champions are posted on the physical leaderboard next to the Quest for the Quill map on campus; a digital leaderboard is also available on this page (see above).
What is the map for?
The map displayed at the Academy for students and visitors to enjoy tracks the campuses’s progress as they race each other to the Golden Quill. Each campus is represented by a magnet, and these campus pieces move throughout the academic year as scores are submitted. The better a campus does on their writing projects relative to other campuses, the further on the map they’ll go. The campus that’s furthest on the map by the end of the year wins the Golden Quill Trophy.
How do students access the puzzles?
Campus pieces progress through different “dimensions” on the map (each dimension represents a setting used in one of the LA courses). Once a campus piece enters a new dimension, it unlocks a new message from the Guild of Enchanted Cartographers, the organization behind the creation of the map and the competition. The messages come in the form of linguistic puzzles that test students’ language arts acumen, and they can be retrieved from the “top secret folder” next to the map.
What happens when a student solves a puzzle?
Students are encouraged to bring their completed puzzles to the campus and show someone at the front desk. A front desk staff member will check students’ answers, and if correct, they will receive an exciting reward. There is one puzzle per dimension, and so the further a campus goes on the map, the more opportunities students get to solve puzzles and collect the small prizes that come with completed puzzles.
Campus Leaderboard
Campus | Position |
---|---|
SC | 12 |
CV | 11 |
MtV | 10 |
LX | 9 |
FM | 8 |
PR | 7 |
MV | 6 |
BV | 5 |
PT | 4 |
FC | 3 |
IR | 3 |
GB | 3 |
MB | 3 |
RM | 3 |
VA | 3 |
Quarter 1 Champions
Course | Champions |
---|---|
LA Level 2 | Raston Kaviani |
LA Level 3 | Alexandra Tudor |
LA Level 4 | Akshara Alluru, Jacey Huang, Cora Kapsimalis, Jasden Nguyen |
LA Level 5 | Sophia AlonsoMartinez, Rita Yu |
Foundations | Christopher Su |
Rhetoric | Mia Su, Vivi Tsang |
Exposition | Om Inamdar, Carter Sogata |
Quarter 2 Champions
Course | Champions |
---|---|
LA Level 2 | |
LA Level 3 | |
LA Level 4 | |
LA Level 5 | |
Foundations | |
Rhetoric | |
Exposition |
Quarter 3 Champions
Course | Champions |
---|---|
LA Level 2 | |
LA Level 3 | |
LA Level 4 | |
LA Level 5 | |
Foundations | |
Rhetoric | |
Exposition |
Quest Champions
Course | Champions |
---|---|
LA Level 2 | |
LA Level 3 | |
LA Level 4 | |
LA Level 5 | |
Foundations | |
Rhetoric | |
Exposition |