ILS 10th graders in section 10M were given an interesting and unusual assignment in their writing class: each wrote a story exactly 50 words in length, and then the group, now as judges, chose the best stories.

"The Scottish Book Trust, a charitable organization that promotes books, reading and writing, holds a monthly '50-word fiction' contest that people from all over the world can participate in via the Internet. Normally, the Trust chooses the topic, but I decided to let each of my students choose their own topic," notes English Language teacher Richard Thomas.

After studying a number of recent prize-winner from the Trust site, each student wrote a 50-word story. Following this, the teacher read every story aloud without naming the author, tallying the number of students who found each story interesting. This process yielded six semi-finalists, whose stories the teacher read aloud a second time, with the authors still unnamed. Three finalists were chosen, and for the final round, the authors were revealed and each read his or story to the audience for the final vote.

The results were as follows: 3rd place - Timur Teregulov for a story called "IB - window of opportunity"; 2nd place - Danil Korotkov for "The small red button"; 1st place - Lee Jiyun for her story "Escape".