The Lion’s Roar, the school paper for the West community, is hosting a ‘Year in Rap’ contest inspired by the one run by The New York Times and Flocabulary.

Here is your opportunity to write a rap about the news that mattered most to you this year. Winners will be selected and included in the January edition of the newspaper.

You can consider news items from politics, education, sports, science, technology, the arts, fashion, as well as key events that impacted the Cherry Hill West community.

Here are the guidelines for the contest:

1. The rap should be 12 to 16 lines long.
2. Students should choose at least four news stories. It’s fine to focus on a specific  topic. For example, you can write a rap based on the Black Lives Matter movement or one of the 2016 presidential candidates rather than the whole range of national or political news this year.
3. Entries should be submitted to [email protected] or F30 by January 19th at 2:45 pm.
4. The rap should be original and must contain no profanity or vulgar language.
5. Submissions are allowed from partners and teams as well as from individuals.
6. One submission per student, please. If you’re submitting as part of a team, you should not also submit as an individual.

Here is a link to the NYT contest. Feel free to use these resources to help with your writing. You will find samples from last year as well as resources to help consider news from 2015. You are also welcome to submit to this contest in addition to our local contest.