‘Creativity’ has been named the 2018 Australian Children’s Word of the Year.
Bravery, pollution, technology and environment were all strong contenders for the 2018 Oxford Australian Children’s Word of the Year but it was creativity that was today named this year’s winner.
More than 500 entries were submitted by primary school and home-schooled children across rural, regional, and metropolitan Australia. Students submitted a piece of writing of up to 500 words based on a word they chose to reflect their lives and interests. Their work could be fiction or non-fiction, funny or serious.
A judging panel, consisting of academics and language experts evaluated the entries based on a word’s popularity, and use in context to determine the Oxford Australian Children’s Word of the Year for 2018.
OUP ANZ director of School Publishing, Lee Walker, said the strong theme of ‘creativity’ in this year’s written submissions gave her confidence that this generation of children will have the skills to confront some of the world’s greatest challenges in new ways.
‘This year’s children’s writing submissions were filled with imagination, insights, and possibilities. Children wrote of ‘magic hens’, ‘happy lands’, ‘adventurous snails,’ and many creative ideas linked to improving the world around them.
‘Some of Australia’s greatest visionaries, such as Professor Graeme Clarke and Howard Florey, dared to imagine new concepts, inventions, and technologies that transformed the world we live in today. The originality and richness of the writing submitted by Australian children illustrates that this generation has the potential to do the same,’ Ms Walker said.
Ms Walker also said this year’s creative pieces reflected children’s aptitude for good structural writing:
‘It’s evident when reviewing this year’s submissions that children across Australia are making excellent progress in the classroom. The communication of ideas and the quality of writing has been particularly impressive. This indicates a high level of student engagement, comprehension, and academic capability.’
Resilience and technology were also noted as strong themes in children’s writing, with recurring words including persistence, courage, and confidence, as well as some previously less common terms, such as meme, pixels, programming, and gaming. Fortnite was the most popular game mentioned.
Seven winning wordsmiths ranging from prep to year six, and one class winner from Victoria, will receive Oxford University Press book vouchers. All participants will be rewarded for their efforts with an age-appropriate free Oxford dictionary.
OUP ANZ is dedicated to recording Australian English and improving literacy. For more information about the competition visit the Oxford Australian Children’s Word of the Year.
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