Shmoop to Award an iPad for High School
National Poetry Month Essay Contest

Shmoop Adviser Jim Burke of the English Companion Ning to Judge Entries

Mountain View, Calif. (April 13, 2010) – Shmoop^® (www.shmoop.com), a publisher of digital resources that make learning fun and relevant for students, today announced its Poetry Essay Contest in conjunction with National Poetry Month. The Grand Prize of the contest is a new Apple iPad.

The company also announced that author and English teacher Jim Burke has joined Shmoop as Special Advisor. Burke will also judge the finalists of the Shmoop Poetry Essay Contest. Burke teaches AP English Literature and 9th grade College Prep English at Burlingame High School in Burlingame, Calif. Burke is the founder of the English Companion Ning, one of the largest online communities for English teachers. Burke has published 20 books for English teachers.

“I’m excited to help Shmoop in its mission to bring intelligent, fun and interactive learning materials to 21st century English classrooms,” said Jim Burke. “I’m impressed with both the intellectual rigor of Shmoop’s materials and its uniquely appealing voice.”

Shmoop Poetry Essay Contest Details

Answer this question in 500 or fewer words:

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost: Examine the relationship between the speaker in the poem and his environment, which includes not only the woods themselves but his horse, the owner of the woods, and the community. Include in your discussion an examination of Frost’s use of language and imagery, focusing on how these contribute to the meaning of the poem and help him to achieve his purpose. Be sure to support your ideas with evidence from the poem.

Contest open to current high school students (and younger)
500 words maximum
Entries must be written in English
Submit entry as a Word, text, or PDF document to support@shmoop.com
Deadline for entry is May 28, 2010

More Information

More contest and prize details at: www.shmoop.com/news/2010/04/12/poetry-essay-contest-ipad/.

About Shmoop

Shmoop publishes digital resources that make learning fun and relevant for students. Shmoop content is written by master teachers and Ph.D. students from Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and other top universities. Shmoop Learning Guides and Teacher’s Editions balance a fun, approachable style with academically rigorous materials to help students understand how subjects relate to their daily lives. Shmoop offers more than 1,900 titles across the Web, iPhone, Kindle, and Nook. The company was an Official Honoree in the 2009 Webby Awards and named “Best of the Internet” by PC Magazine. Launched in 2008, Shmoop is headquartered in a Labradoodle-patrolled office in Mountain View, Calif. For more information, visit www.shmoop.com.