Two students from Municipal Middle School No. 2 in Bolesławiec won the most important and prestigious competition in Lower Silesia. They defeated 42 contestants in the Polish language category.
The competition consisted of two stages. The first involved working with a text. In the second, which 66 participants qualified for, the students chose a thematic section. Iwona Rybacka and Kamila Kamińska chose the topic “Among Small Prose Forms”. It required knowledge of literary theory and reading a set of several epic works in diverse, linguistically challenging forms. The required reading included works by Julio Cortázar, Anton Chekhov, Sławomir Mrożek, Stanisław Lem and Olga Tokarczuk, among others.
Ewa Ołenicz-Bernacka, a Polish language teacher and the girls’ academic mentor, praises the winners: “Both are modest, very intelligent and exceptionally hardworking. The path they followed was not easy. Taking part in the ‘zDolny Ślązak’ competition requires students to have extensive knowledge of both the Polish language and history, including art history.”
In the final stage, Kamila and Iwona answered questions before two different competition committees. “At that point, they did not yet know that they had achieved success, but they were very pleased,” Ołenicz-Bernacka recalls. “The pleasure of reading and discussing the texts they had encountered before their competition presentation, and the joy of engaging with literature, made them forget about the stress and fatigue. They had to wait for the final results. In the last week of February, it turned out that both had made the list of competition winners.”
The editorial team of the “Istotne Informacje” website and newspaper congratulates the winners and is pleased to report on their success.
(information EO-B/ii)