The Lincoln Lyceum Summer Essay Contest
Rhetoric school students from ACCS affiliated schools are eligible to submit essays. The contest originally began at The Wilberforce School in Princeton, New Jersey, in 2020. The topic changes each year and is intended to stimulate reflection, reading, thought, and debate on important topics. The contest is made possible through friends of The Wilberforce School who care deeply about future Christian leaders.
Note: To qualify, the essay must be of a quality consistent with ACCS writing standards.
Are you an ACCS school?
Get entry details and forms for your student competitor(s).
Are you an ACCS student?
Talk to a teacher or administrator about entering. Students entering 10th, 11th, and 12th grade are eligible.
Interested in learning more?
Keep reading to see more details and past winners.
Overview
- Guidelines and Topic: Guidelines and topics are published on the Member Resource Center (MRC) and are sent to ACCS member schools when available.
- Enter: Ask your ACCS school to complete the online entry form. Schools can access entry forms and details on the MRC (Member Resource Center).
- Deadline: The contest is held each summer, with a mid-summer deadline.
- Eligibility: ACCS students entering 10th, 11th, or 12th grade
- Honorarium:
1st place: $2,500
2nd place: $1,500
3rd place: $1,000
4th place: $750
5th place: $500
2024
- Discuss the impact of individual character on the wider community in Homer’s Iliad or Shakespeare’s King Lear. Essays which incorporate the following personal interview question will be favored: Ask a grandparent or one of their contemporaries to describe a situation in their life where an individual’s character and decisions had a wide impact, for good or for bad.
- George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength all offer differing visions of how we may go wrong in the future. Which of these visions best portrays the dangers we presently face as a society? Why?
2023
Summer 2023 Essay Topic:
It is December 2024. The newly elected President of the United States is preparing to take the oath of office in January. The President is grateful for the formative role that his military experience played in his life as both a man and citizen, and has therefore made it a central plank of his program for national renewal that every male citizen of the United States must serve in the U.S. military for one (1) year before the age of 22. He is fond of reciting a quote from Robert F. Kennedy (the former US Attorney General), “Since the days of Greece and Rome, when the word ‘citizen’ was a title of honor, we have often seen more emphasis put on the rights of citizenship than on its responsibilities.” As a key member of the policy team, you are tasked with making the case for mandatory military service to both Congress and a skeptical American public. Your task is to present the most convincing argument possible for this policy, and address the strongest potential counter-arguments, drawing from whatever sources you choose. The President has asked for your position paper to be no more than 1,000 words. Note: The President requires you to include quotes from actual interviews you have conducted of adults who were eligible for the draft during the years when the draft was the law (1948-1973).
2nd Place: David Jen, The Wilberforce School (NJ)
3rd Place: Micah LeClair, Covenant Christian Academy (PA)
4th Place: Joshua Jen, The Wilberforce School (NJ)
5th Place: Elijah Chandler, Paideia Academy (TN)