Tuesday, May 31, 2011

IT BEE-GINS:  At this moment, two-hundred seventy five of the world's best English language spellers have gathered in a hotel conference room in National Harbor, Maryland, for the written component of the 84th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee.  Unlike previous such tests administered via computer, this year all the kids will be in the room together as Dr. Jacque Bailly reads the word live, along with alternate pronunciations, the part of speech, origin, definition and using each in a sentence. Repeat info, pause for thirty seconds, move to the next word.  (Our takes on previous written rounds: 2006200720082009, and 2010.)

Their totals on this twenty-five word test, combined with tomorrow's two guaranteed trips before the microphone, will determine who are the up-to-fifty kids who'll make it to Thursday's competition. Tomorrow's rounds will be streamed online on ESPN3 in two feeds - the traditional info-packed feed and, for the first time, "a second 'play along' version, featuring the option to view its coverage without graphics for fans at home to test their knowledge against the champion spellers."

The competitors are evenly divided by gender, and range in age from eight-year-old Ethan Ruggeri of Virginia to a pair of fifteen-year-olds.  Twenty-four have relatives who have done this before, though for the first time since 2005 there won't be a Shivashankar among them. We do have two returners from 2010's primetime finals: Canada's Greatest Speller, third-timer Laura Newcombe and Carlisle (PA)'s Joanna Ye, whose preparation looked like this:
Soon after the bee ended last year she embarked on her plan to try for the finals this year — to study the entire dictionary, word by word. “It took me about five months. I compiled a huge list of words to study — about 40,000 words — which took up over 800 pages of notebook paper,” Ye said.

“All the words are in the dictionary. I thought if I memorized it, I’d have the bee down,” she said. But she soon found out there are way too many words. Many, like a genus of bacteria, would be impossible to reasonably use in a sentence in the bee, so she didn’t worry about them, and instead focused on the ones that would be more likely to be in the bee.

Along with the six notebooks filled with words to study, her father, Yunshan, helped her make about 10,000 flashcards. “I was planning on making 40,000, but I stopped because it took too long to make them.”

“It was tedious. I spent several hours a day reading the dictionary,” she said, but listening to Bob Dylan while she did it helped make it bearable. “I love multitasking,” she said.
We, too, love multitasking, love these kids and love the Bee. That's why we're back for a ninth straight year to live-blog it all, joined by a number of former national finalists, Bee SuperFan Shonda Rhimes, and anyone else who feels like dropping by to celebrate and enjoy this competition. Do enjoy.

10 comments:

  1. Yay hometown girl Ye!
    Boo to me moving this week and being without cable. Thank heavens for the live feed.

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  2. Yay hometown girl Ye!
    Boo to me moving this week and being without cable. Thank heavens for the live feed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Marsha10:04 AM

    Alas, the young lady from my kids' school won't be competing again this year, so I have no natural rooting interest.

    Is it me, or are there very few familiar names this year? I can't find the repeaters list...

    I so don't have time for this this week....

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  4. There's a misspelling on the repeaters list page.

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  5. Anonymous11:25 AM

    "There's a misspelling on the repeaters list page."

    DING!!!

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  6. Marsha11:52 AM

    I'm now part of the Juliana Canabal-Rodriquez fan club, as I have been informed she is the best-Bee-friend of the speller I rooted for last year. ;-)

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  7. Adam C.11:57 AM

    In addition to Laura Newcombe and Joanna Ye, an early and non-exhaustive list of other rooting interests:

    Hometown girl and M.O.T. Lena Greenberg;
    Fellow Phillies fan Veronica Siko;
    Four-year repeater and Sam-Weir-lookalike Nicholas Rushlow

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  8. Genevieve12:51 PM

    Thanks for pointing to Joanna's response - perfect!

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  9. Genevieve1:27 PM

    Top rooting interests are Laura Newcome, Julianna Canabal-Rodriguez (who I remember liking in previous years - plus she has a terrific name, rolls off the tongue so musically) and Joanna Ye.

    No one from my home town to root for.  So early list of rooting interests includes:

    Donovan Jordan, because he's the closest to my hometown, and I always like the DC spellers;
    Rachael Gundy of Augusta, GA, because her favorite book is Anne of Green Gables;
    Marlene Louise Santora of Chicago, because if she could meet anyone, it would be Tina Fey;
    Morgan Folgers of Sterling, IL, because her favorite book is Pride and Prejudice;
    Kira Paley of Hackensack, because one of her favorite books is Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer;
    Parker Strubhar of Oklahoma City, because I'm very impressed that he's in the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals as well;
    all the kids who were on Jeopardy! and all the theater kids (far too many to list);

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