Announcing 15 Finalists for the #HowTheRunShouldEnd Writing Contest

11/20/2019

As all teachers know, engaging middle school students in reading can be a challenge.

So when 834,438 middle school students in 5,268 districts across the country started reading the zombie cliffhanger series “The Run,” their teachers let us know how excited they were:

Unfortunately, when a beloved zombie cliffhanger with a bluegrass twist ends after 7 installments, you’re bound to have some dissatisfied readers.

So why not give these engaged middle schoolers a chance to do better? We decided to do just that and team up with Quill.org to start the #HowTheRunShouldEnd Writing Contest. And they did not disappoint!

232 classes shared alternate 10 word endings on social media

And a whopping 5,460 middle school students wrote and submitted original alternate endings.

Overwhelmed by the results, we found 187 volunteer authors, librarians, teachers, ReadWorks and Quill staff and more to help us read every single hopeful cure or nightmare ending to the saga. Judges were blown away by the creativity, skill, and enthusiasm of the entries, but we had to narrow it down...

We finally selected just 15 incredible finalists. Read these amazing stories on our finalist page and share their work!