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CHELSEA – Four Chelsea Middle School students were named Promising Young Writers by the National Council of Teachers of English.

Eighth graders Caleb Chapman, Claire King, Kolbe Hess and Theresa Nguyen were in ChMS teacher Charlsie Wigley’s English Language Arts class last year.

“This is the first year that ChMS students have been nominated and honored through this program, which is targeted at eighth grade students,” Wigley said. “As their former teacher (I taught them in the seventh grade), I reached out to them at the beginning of the school year to gauge interest in the program. I then helped them revise and submit their submissions.”

Wigley said students wrote about nature and included different pieces they had written in various classes over the course of their middle school years.

“I can’t wait to see where their writing takes them next,” Wigley said.

The Promising Young Writers Program represents the NCTE’s commitment to early and continuing work in the development of writing, according to a press release.

The school-based writing program was established in 1985 to stimulate and recognize writing talents and to emphasize the importance of writing skills among eighth-grade students.

Schools in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, American schools abroad and the Virgin Islands are eligible to nominate students.

This year, schools nominated 131 students. Of that number, 52 received the highest award, Certificates of Recognition, and 79 received Certificates of Participation.

Each student submitted two pieces of writing. Two independent judges evaluated each submission holistically on content, purpose, audience, tone, word choice, organization, development and style.