Children, young people and literature: Cepell’s competitions

Quando i ragazzi ci insegnano, BookTuberPrize, Cercatori di poesia nascosta: new editions launched for Italian educational institutions abroad

The collaboration between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Centre for Books and Reading of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education, which aims to promote initiatives which foster the circulation and awareness of literature among the younger generations is being renewed again this year.

Aimed at secondary school pupils in Italy and abroad, ‘Quando i ragazzi ci insegnano’ (When the Children Teach Us) is part of an overall plan of action that the MI, MiC and MAECI have been promoting for years to encourage reading in educational institutions. The initiative also aims to improve the intercultural knowledge of the participants and to promote the dissemination of our language and literature abroad. Students are invited to give a lesson, by making a video of a maximum duration of 12 minutes in which they have to describe a work (prose or poetry) by a modern or contemporary Italian author. Together with the video, the students have to make a trailer with a maximum duration of 2 minutes. The winning schools will use the prize money to purchase a set of books for their school library. Every winning Italian educational institution will be “twinned” with a winning Italian educational institution abroad with the same ranking, through the organization of one or more online meetings in which students will present their lessons to each other. To participate, the documents specified in the call for proposals must be sent to quandoiragazzicinsegnano@beniculturali.it by 26 April 2022.

“BookTuberPrize” is aimed at young people from 15 to 25 years old, in Italy and abroad, with the intention not only to promote the exchange and circulation of books, but also to stimulate the careful and conscious reading of a book in order to write a review, thus developing critical thinking. After having chosen and read a book or a poetry collection, participants will have to describe its content through a video review in Italian of a maximum of 2 minutes. Prizes of up to 500 euros will be awarded, to be spent in a bookshop that will be chosen with the 2022 edition of the ‘Maggio dei libri’ prize. Entries must be sent by 02 May 2022 to scuola.cepell@beniculturali.it.

From this year on, ‘Cercatori di poesia nascosta. Esplorare il testo con il Metodo Caviardage®’ (Seekers of Hidden Poetry: Exploring the Text with the Caviardage Method) will be aimed at pupils of all levels, from primary to secondary schools, in Italy and abroad. Through the highly inclusive Caviardage method®, the application of which allows, among other things, the development of divergent thinking, the initiative aims to stimulate an attentive and at the same time “intuitive” reading of the text, which aims to investigate, through creativity, one’s own emotions. The teachers will invite the students to a “bird’s eye” reading of a page of their choice from Carlo Collodi’s edition of Pinocchio, which can be downloaded from the Cepell website, in order to bring out the “hidden words” most suitable for forming a short poem. Once the text has been created, the remaining part can also be erased using drawings or other artistic techniques. Entries must be sent by 11 April 2022 to scuola.cepell@beniculturali.it. In addition to the five winners, 60 entries (20 from each school) will also be selected for publication. The winning institutions will receive a prize to buy a set of books for their school library, as well as a copy of the competition’s final publication.

Information on how to register and on the course of the initiatives can be found on Cepell‘s website.