We are thrilled to celebrate our talented students who received multiple honors in the 2026 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, including six Gold Keys, five Silver Keys, seven Honorable Mentions, and one highly prestigious National-level Silver Key. Visit our website to hear from several Madeira honorees.
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program, presented by the Alliance for Youth Artists and Writers, is the largest, longest-running recognition program of its kind in the United States. Established in 1923, the awards have recognized students who have become some of our nation’s most celebrated artists. More than 200,000 students nationwide participate in the program annually.
A distinguished panel of experienced judges in each field evaluated submissions on originality, skills, and the emergence of a personal voice, and selected honorees from several thousand entries.
Out of these visual art submissions, Gold Keys, Silver Keys, and Honorable Mentions are awarded for outstanding drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, ceramics, sculptures, digital art, architecture, jewelry, fashion, film and animation, mixed media artworks, and portfolios.
Designations are awarded for writing in the following categories: Critical Essay, Flash Fiction, Journalism, Novel, Personal Essay & Memoir, Poetry, Screenplays & Scripts, Short Story, Speculative Fiction, and Portfolio.
Gold Key award-winning entries are submitted to the national competition, where students may be awarded national Gold and Silver medals, as well as monetary awards and scholarships. Selections of award-winning teen work are highlighted in the organization’s annual art catalog and writing anthology publications.
Today, you will hear from a few of the honored Madeira creators as they share their thoughts and a bit about their artistic processes.
Writing Awards
Sophia Ren ’26
Regional Gold Key / National Silver Medal, Screenplays & Scripts: “Chad: A Late Night Infomercial”
Honorable Mention, Personal Essay & Memoir: “Pingtan”
“‘Chad,’ is a satirical late-night infomercial that follows two exhausted students confronted with an AI product that promises to ‘optimize’ their lives. Through this piece, I attempt to humorously reveal how a generation is overwhelmed by expectations to the point that outsourcing their work, identity, and even personality feels necessary just to survive. The work critiques the rise of AI-driven productivity culture and the normalization of constant self-optimization, in which one's success is measured solely by output. Through ‘Chad,’ this work points to systems that create an environment in which resisting these tools means risking falling behind. This script questions what happens when everyone conforms to this standard and whether authenticity still holds value in a world where our performance is everything.”
Isabella Choi ’28
Silver Key, Flash Fiction: “Clay Pigeons”
“[My piece] is a work of flash fiction that I felt inspired to write as a means of trying to emulate the emotional response to a complex relationship. I wanted to make the narrator's perspective as conflicting and ambiguous as possible in order for the reader to understand how, sometimes, nothing is as it appears to be. ‘Clay Pigeons’ is built on the premise that, really, you will never truly know as much as you think you do.
One challenge I faced was finding an appropriate ending, coming up with something that would resolve the character's story in a manner that was respectful of her journey, but also satisfactory to the overall theme. In the end, I was able to determine a finale that I felt sufficiently wrapped up most of the story, while also leaving enough ambiguity behind that it has potential to continue in the future; I wanted it to end in a way where it feels as if the protagonist's story is not ending, but just beginning.”
Allie Garbini ’27
Honorable Mention, Critical Essay: “Shame, Pride, and the Moral Duty of Nations”
"The essay was about how countries have and should reckon with their past. I used America, Rwanda, and Germany as three case studies for how nations can be overly prideful in their history while ignoring the dark parts, how nations can be overly guilty and wallow in the pain of their past, and how nations can positively confront their history through reparations and restorative practices. I was inspired to write this essay after learning of the German attitude towards their horrific past, namely the Holocaust; while it is imperfect, they have taken great steps in reckoning with their history and ensuring their population is very well educated on it. This, in comparison to the American attitude towards our nation’s history, which, for many, is that bringing up or learning about the terrible parts is seen as unpatriotic, intrigued me to seek out a third example where the shame of a recent genocide has resulted in unproductive sorrow rather than steps towards recovery (Rwanda).”
Alice Hong ’28
Honorable Mention, Poetry: “Kimchi Fried Rice”
“I received an Honorable Mention in poetry for my piece ‘Kimchi Fried Rice,’ which was inspired by my favorite Korean dish. The poem centers on the image of red and white swirling together in the pan, with the kimchi staining the rice, and uses that everyday kitchen moment to think about how difference and unity can live in the same space. There's something about kimchi fried rice that has always felt like home to me, but also like a small metaphor for the way identities mix and shift, especially as someone who grew up in Seoul and now lives in the U.S.
I first drafted it during one of my earliest English class assignments freshman year, so it's a piece that's been with me for a while and has grown alongside me. The hardest part was probably resisting the urge to over-explain. I wanted the colors and the textures to do most of the work and let the bigger ideas about culture and identity sit underneath the surface rather than getting spelled out. Honestly, though, the most fun part was taking something so ordinary and familiar from my own kitchen and pushing it somewhere more abstract, seeing how far a bowl of rice could stretch as an image.”
Art Awards
Ivy Du ’28
Photography: 2 Gold Keys, 1 Silver Key, 2 Honorable Mentions
“Glossy Youth was a photo I took during a business trip with my mother to Shanghai, China. We wandered through an older town during an afternoon promenade and came across an old-fashioned bookstore. We lingered as my mother spoke about the magazines she read as a child and how radiant the cover models felt to her then. And still feel to us now. The aesthetic belongs to a more prosperous, upbeat era, yet its timelessness still brings me back to that time. Through the glossy layer of cellophane, I was looking into the flourishing youths that had already passed but were somehow preserved. In that moment, I was also looking into my mother’s growth from a little girl.”
Glossy Youth (Gold Key)
Emily Paschkewitz ’28
Silver Key, Mixed Media: Feelings
Gold Key, Digital Painting, Drawing & Collage: Max
"Max is a digital portrait of my best friend—something I originally created just for fun and as a gift for her. Painting someone you know so well is both easy and difficult: easy because you can immediately see them in your mind’s eye and difficult because you want to get it exactly right! Since I created this art for fun, I didn't originally plan to submit it, but the recognition reminded me that my best work comes when I am really passionate about it. Whenever I feel that spark of inspiration deeply, I’ve learned to follow it, and those are the creative outcomes that give me the most joy.”
Other Scholastic Award winners included Anu Gunturu ’26, Nox Nackman ’27, and Crystal Wang ’28.
Congratulations to all of this year’s participants from Madeira!
#MadeAtMadeira #MadeiraInspired #MadeiraCreativity #MadeiraArts #MadeiraEnglish
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