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EspañolSCRIPPS NATIONAL SPELLING BEE
The 'Scripps National Spelling Bee' (formerly known as the 'Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee' and commonly referred to simply as the 'National Spelling Bee') is a highly competitive annual spelling bee. It is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W. Scripps Company and is held in the ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Washington hotel in Washington, D.C. The competition is open to the winners of sponsored regional spelling bees held mostly throughout the United States. Contestants from Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, New Zealand, and the Bahamas have participated in the Scripps National Spelling Bee as well. The 80th National Spelling bee took place on Wednesday, May 30, and Thursday, May 31, 2007. On the second day of competition, ESPN broadcast the semifinal rounds live from 10 AM until 1 PM EDT. The Championship Finals aired live on ABC from 8:00 PM to shortly after 10:00 p.m. EDT. Evan O'Dorney, the 2007 champion, was the third competitor ever to win as a home-schooled child. His final word was ''serrefine'', a small forceps for clamping a blood vessel.
History
The website of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The National Spelling Bee was formed in 1925 as a consolidation of numerous local spelling bees, organized by the ''Louisville Courier-Journal'' and having nine competitors. Later, the E.W. Scripps Company acquired the rights to the program. The bee is held in late May and/or early June of each year, and is open to students who have not yet completed the eighth grade, reached their 16th birthday, nor won a previous National Spelling Bee. Its goal is educational: not only to encourage children to perfect the art of spelling, but also to help enlarge their vocabularies and widen their knowledge of the English language.
The 79th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C., on May 31 and June 1, 2006. Two hundred seventy-five spellers participated in the competition (the greatest in the history of the event), and Katharine Close was crowned the champion after twenty arduous rounds. Finola Hackett of Canada placed second after misspelling "weltschmerz." For the first time in the Bee's history, ABC broadcast the Championship Rounds on prime-time TV. ESPN, which had televised the final rounds of the bee in their entirety since 1994 (CNN televised the final rounds from 1991-93), aired the Preliminary Championship Rounds. ESPN SportsCenter anchor Chris McKendry hosted the ESPN broadcast and ABC Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts hosted the ABC broadcast, with former finalist Paul Loeffler serving as the analyst for both broadcasts, and Chris Connelly filling the sideline reporter role. Both ESPN and ABC broadcasted the event in high-definition.
The 2006 Bee was also remarkable because an extremely rare error had made its way into the judges' word lists. This Round 8 error, had it not been found and reported quickly, would have resulted in the erroneous elimination of Saryn Hooks, who correctly spelled the Hebrew-derived word "hechsher," meaning a rabbinical endorsement of food. The judges' word list, however, listed the word as "hechs'c'her." The error was first caught by Lucas Brown, who then promptly notified the judges. Saryn Hooks was reinstated, and went on to take third place.
Regional competitions
The Scripps National Spelling Bee begins through the millions of students in schools that participate in the program. Scripps has 275 sponsors (mostly newspapers) from the U.S., Canada, Bahamas, New Zealand, and Europe covering a certain area and conducting their own regional spelling bees to send spellers to the national level. All winners (as of 2007) have been from the United States, except for Jody-Anne Maxwell, who won in 1998, representing Jamaica. Regional bees usually have a limited number of spots allotted to each school in their region, so schools conduct their own spelling bees to determine the spellers get to advance to regionals. Sometimes there are additional levels of spelling bees between the school bees and regional bees, such as district or county bees.
Most school and regional bees (known to Scripps as "local spelling bees") use the official study booklet. Until 1994, the study booklet was known as "Words of the Champions"; from 1994 to 2006, the study booklet was the category-based "Paideia", and in 2007 was changed to the 701-word "Spell It!". The current booklet is published by Merriam-Webster in association with the National Spelling Bee. "Spell It!" contains 701 words, divided primarily by language of origin, along with exercises and activities in each section. This booklet will be changed yearly. Bees preliminary to the regional level mostly use the ''School Pronouncer's Guide'' which contains a collection of ''Spell It!'' words as well as 'surprise words', words not in ''Spell It!'' but in Scripps' official dictionary, ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged''.
The regional bees are given a ''Sponsor Bee Guide'' by Scripps. There are two volumes, which each contain ''Spell It!'' words as well as surprise words. However, any official bee, regional or not, can choose not to use the words from ''Spell It!''.
The national competition
Format
Katharine "Kerry" Close shortly after becoming champion of the 79th Scripps National Spelling Bee.
After a few days of festivities, the national competition begins. Round One consists of a 25-word multiple-choice written test. One word on the written test is taken from ''Spell It!'', the official study booklet; Dr. Jacques Bailly, the Bee's official pronouncer, pronounces each word, its language of origin, definition, and usage in a sentence. Round Two is an oral round in which all spellers spell a word from the Bee's official dictionary, ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged'', which has over 476,000 entries.
Each correct word on the Round One written test is worth one point and a correct oral spelling in Round Two is worth three points. The judges find the lowest of the 90 highest total scores (Rounds One and Two combined) to find a minimum qualifying score for Round Three. All spellers attaining this score, called the "Threshold of 90," advance to Round Three, while all others are eliminated. In the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee, 97 spellers advanced with a minimum qualifying score of 21.
Beginning in Round Three, each speller participates in a single-elimination oral round, and is given one word to spell. If a speller spells incorrectly, he or she is eliminated. If he or she spells correctly, he or she moves on to the next round.
Rounds continue until a champion is declared. If, at the end of a particular round, there is only one speller remaining, he or she must correctly spell one additional word to win. If he or she misspells his or her word, then all spellers who were present at the beginning of the round return, and the next round begins. If there are two or three spellers remaining at the beginning of a round, the pronouncer moves to the Championship Words section of the word list. The spellers alternate spelling words from this list of 25 words until only one speller remains. However, if all 25 Championship Words are exhausted before a champion is declared, then all remaining spellers are declared co-champions.
Before 2004, spellers were not asked to spell any word until the judges deemed that the word has been clearly pronounced and identified by the speller, only then would the judges force a speller to begin spelling. Starting in 2004, the Bee adopted new rules.
A speller is given two minutes and thirty seconds from when a word is first pronounced to spell a word in its entirety. The first two minutes are known as "Regular Time", the final thirty seconds is known as "Finish Time". During this time limit, a speller is allowed to ask the pronouncer for the following information:
★ The definition of the word
★ The word's part of speech
★ The word's usage in a sentence
★ The word's language(s) of origin (not the complete etymology, even though some spellers refer to the language(s) of origin as the etymology)
★ Alternate pronunciations of the word
★ Alternate definitions of the word
★ Whether or not the word contains a specified root; this may only be asked providing the speller can state the root in question, the root's language of origin, and the root's definition.
Once Regular Time has expired, a chime will sound, and the judges will inform the speller that Finish Time has begun. The speller gets the benefit of watching a clock count down from thirty seconds, as no timing devices are allowed onstage. No more requests may be made to the pronouncer, and the speller must begin spelling the word. Any speller that exceeds the time limit is automatically eliminated on the grounds that judges will not acknowledge any letters given by the speller after the end of Finish Time.
A speller is allowed once during the bee to ask for Bonus Time which is a one minute continuation of Regular Time. Bonus Time must be requested before Finish Time commences.
A speller is also allowed to start over spelling a word, however, he or she may not change the letters they have already said. Doing so counts as a misspell and automatic elimination.
Any speller that exhausts Regular Time twice will be subjected to Abbreviated Regular Time (90 seconds) instead of Regular Time.
In 2005, there were nineteen rounds, and the last seven rounds only had three eliminations, underscoring the expertise of these final four spellers. In 2006, there were twenty rounds, with the two final spellers in competition from Rounds 13 through 20. In 2007, there were 13 rounds, with the two final spellers in rounds 10 to 13.
Prizes
The winner of the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee is awarded cash and prizes totaling over $42,500. These include: a cash prize of $20,000 and an engraved loving cup from Scripps, a $2,500 savings bond and reference library from Merriam-Webster, a $5,000 cash award from Leapfrog, a $5,000 cash award from Franklin Electronic Publishers, over $5,000 in reference works from ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', and a $5,000 college scholarship from the Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation.
In 2006, every speller received a commemorative watch (manufactured by TimeCal) from Scripps, ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged'' on CD-ROM from Merriam-Webster, a $100 Series EE U.S. Savings Bond, a $20 gift certificate from Franklin Electronic Publishers, a Fly Pentop Computer from Leapfrog, and a cash prize from Scripps. These cash prizes are determined based on the round in which the speller is eliminated. They range from $25 for a speller eliminated before the third round with less than 13 points, $12,000 for the second place finisher, to $20,000 for the champion (not including prizes from other sources).
Recent competitions and spellers
The winner of the 80th Scripps National Spelling Bee (2007) was 13-year-old Evan O'Dorney from Danville, California. He won in Round 13 by correctly spelling ''. The runner-up was Nate Gartke from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, who misspelled ''. This marks two out of three years that a Californian has won the National Spelling Bee. It is also the second consecutive year that a Canadian has placed second. In 2007, there were 286 spellers, 139 boys and 147 girls.
A thirteen-year-old eighth-grader from Spring Lake, New Jersey, Katharine "Kerry" Close, won the 79th Scripps National Spelling Bee (2006) on her fifth attempt, correctly spelling '' in the twentieth round. She is the first female champion since 1999. There was a record total of 275 spellers, 139 boys and 136 girls, in the 2006 Bee. In the 2005 Bee, there were only 19 rounds with 273 spellers. All states were represented, as well as several other countries, but some of the lower population states (such as Wyoming) sent only one speller to the Bee. Fourteen of the spellers were from Canada.
A mix of still eligible and former spellers have formed an online study organization known as "Speller Nation," or SPN, designed to help students learn more about the English language. Several of the top ten finalists of 2005 and 2006, including 2005 National Champion Anurag Kashyap, Elicia Chamberlin, George Hornedo, and Saryn Hooks were in this group. SPN has reportedly drawn harsh criticism from the National Spelling Bee's director, Paige Kimble, but rumors of this criticism are not documented. Speller Nation practically disappeared from the spelling bee scene when its three founders moved on to other ventures after the 2006 bee. Though it still lives as a socialization community, its role in the training process has diminished.
A recent trend in the bee is the large number of Indian American participants and winners since Balu Natarajan won the competition in 1985. 5 of the last 7 champions, the top 4 competitors in 2005 and 30 out of the 97 competitors to clear the written round in 2006 were of the Indian American community. This has led to significant media coverage of the event in India.[1]
Publicity
In film
Documentary
The 2002 Academy Award-nominated documentary ''Spellbound'' follows eight competitors during the 1999 competition, including the 1999 spelling bee winner, Nupur Lala.
Fiction
The 2005 film ''Bee Season'', based on Myla Goldberg's novel, follows a young girl's journey through various levels of spelling bee competition to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, as did the film ''Akeelah and the Bee'' the following year. Contestants in the Broadway show ''The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'' are competing for a spot in the National Spelling Bee. The 2007 novel ''Spelldown'' by Karon Luddy is a fictional account of a South Carolina girl's journey from the Shirley County spelling championships to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The term and logo
The origin of the word "bee" as used in "spelling bee" is unclear. "Bee" refers to "a gathering", where people join together in an activity. While the similarity between these human social gatherings and the social nature of bees is evident, recent thinking is that the "bee" in "spelling bee" is of a completely different origin[1]. Regardless, an insect bee is featured prominently on the logo of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which was designed by Jeff Fassnacht and Lori Seibert of Seibert Design Associates in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Nonfiction
The book ''American Bee'', by James Maguire, profiles 5 spellers who made it to the final rounds of the competition: Samir Patel, Katharine Close, Aliya Deri, Jamie Ding, and Marshall Winchester, as well as giving an overview of the history of the bee.[2]
Criticism
Some critics believe that the winning word for each year is too easy compared to the other words in the high rounds of the nationals. However, different bee experts have noticed that the championship word needs a "beeable" definition. In common terms, this means that the final word, such as Ursprache or autochthonous, requires a definition that the general public can identify.
Some suggest homeschooled students have an advantage, that they can forgo their studies to prepare for the bee. Homeschoolers respond that, while they do have extra time to devote to spelling practice, such extra time does not come at the expense of their other studies; rather, lessons can be completed in a shorter time when one omits the travel time, change of classes, roll call, socializing, etc. that school students must do.
Many critics argue that the contest's format does not actually guarantee the best speller will win because when a contestant is disqualified for misspelling a word, any number of the remaining contestants might also not know how to spell the same word, yet those contestants get to continue in the competition. (One format with more parity would require all contestants to write out the same word in each round; all misspellers of that word would be simultaneously disqualified, and the final winner would be the only contestant to have correctly spelled all words in all rounds.) Examples of this alleged disparity are most visible in the middle rounds of national competition, when some words are familiar to reasonably well-read persons but others must be figured out from their etymology. For example, in Round 4 of the 2004 National Spelling Bee, one girl received the relatively well-known word "facade", while another speller then received the word "silicicolous" (which she went on to misspell). While it is true that a speller of national-championship caliber would likely be able to reconstruct the word from its Greco-Latin elements, "silex, silicis" (sand) and "-colous" (inhabiting), spellers of more modest ability often find that receiving one word rather than another can make a significant difference in how far they advance and the prize money they receive.
Defenders of the current Bee format note that although the word each speller receives may vary in apparent difficulty at the moment they receive it, all spellers have an equal chance beforehand of receiving that particular word, until the officials determine the order in which that round's words will be pronounced. Hence, because each speller possesses the same chance beforehand of being given any word, spellers of equal skill will have the same chance beforehand of successfully remaining in the competition.
Many of these commentators also note that giving the same word to all spellers remaining in competition, as currently occurs in the written test round of national competition, eliminates spellers' ability to ask questions regarding the specific etymological roots of those words. Such a format favors spellers who rely on rote memorization and disadvantages spellers who employ more sophisticated analytical methods to decipher the spelling of words with which they are not familiar.
Champions and winning words
The following are the previous champions, their sponsors, and the final word in competition (i.e., the word that was correctly spelled to be declared the champion).[3] The Scripps National Spelling Bee was not held in the World War II years of 1943, 1944, and 1945, and co-champions were declared in the years 1950, 1957, and 1962.
1 One of the spellers interviewed/shown in the documentary ''Spellbound''.
² Jacques Bailly is now the pronouncer of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
³ Now Paige Kimble, director of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
4 Blake Giddens is now a judge of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
5 George Thampy is now a staff member of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
References
1. http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/jun/05us5.htm, http://specials.rediff.com/news/2005/jun/03sld1.htm, http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/02spec.htm
2. Word Nerds: Superbright youngsters who vie to make the best-speller list Debra Bruno
3. "Champions and Their Winning Words"
External links
★ Official website of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
★ 2007 Spelling Bee Press Release
★ Final rounds of 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee to be broadcast live on ABC during primetime (press release)
;Related media sites
★ When Spelling Bee Champs Grow Up on Time.com (a division of Time Magazine)
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