# São Paulo Essay Olympiad

The São Paulo Essay Olympiad (Portuguese: Olimpíada de Redação de São Paulo, or REDASP) is an annual writing competition held in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, targeting students from public schools. The competition was officially launched in 2024 by the São Paulo State Department of Education (SEDUC-SP) and is conducted through the REDASP or Paulista Essay platforms of the São Paulo Media Center (CMSP) educational portal.
The REDASP aims to encourage writing skills among students and enhance their ability to articulate thoughts and ideas effectively. The competition is open to students ranging from the 6th year of elementary school (ensino fundamental) to the 3rd year of high school (ensino médio). The inaugural event took place between August 19 and 27, 2024.

## Objective

REDASP aims to enhance students' textual production in line with the competencies of the São Paulo Curriculum. It promotes the use of diverse communication forms, including verbal (oral, sign language like Libras, and written), corporal, visual, auditory, and digital, allowing students to express themselves and convey information, experiences, ideas, and emotions across various contexts. This approach fosters dialogue, conflict resolution, and collaboration. Moreover, the initiative seeks to recognize and celebrate students' authorship by showcasing their written works.

## Structure

The competition lasts about 1 hour and 30 minutes, consists of a single phase and evaluates participants based on specific criteria related to writing quality and adherence to the competition's guidelines. Students are required to submit essays that vary in length according to their educational level:
* Elementary School: Essays must be between 100 to 250 words.
* High School: Essays must be between 120 to 350 words.
Failure to comply with these word limits results in disqualification from the competition.

## Scoring system

The scoring for the essays ranges from 0.00 to 100.00 points. The evaluation criteria include:
* Writing conventions: This encompasses spelling, morphology, syntax, semantics, and language, among other linguistic aspects.
* Adherence to the theme: Essays must stay relevant to the given topic.
* Gender adequacy: The essays should be appropriate for the assigned genre.
* Presence of authorship marks: Originality and personal voice are taken into account.

### Classification Process

The classification process is eliminatory and consists of two main steps:
* Pre-Approval: The top 10% of participating students from each school, per year/grade, are selected based on the quality of their texts. In case of ties, the student's grade in the Portuguese Language component of the Prova Paulista from the second bimester and attendance records are considered as tiebreakers.
* Municipal Classification: This phase involves the evaluation of the pre-selected essays by a dedicated Essay Evaluation Board. Only the 10% of the previously selected texts are assessed at this level, following the specific evaluation criteria outlined on the Paulista Essay platform, which vary according to the year/grade and textual genre.
From the municipal evaluation, 5% of the best-placed students in each municipality are awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals. The classifications are organized by municipality, except in larger municipalities such as Campinas, Guarulhos, and São Paulo, where the classifications are further subdivided by Education Departments. Within these regions, rankings are established by year/grade. Tiebreakers in this phase follow the same procedure as in the pre-approval stage, using the Prova Paulista grades and student attendance.

## History and implementation

The REDASP was launched in 2024 by the São Paulo State Department of Education (SEDUC-SP) to promote writing and enhance students' writing skills within the public school system. It was initiated following the implementation of the Paulista Essay platform from the São Paulo Media Center, which enabled SEDUC-SP to track the volume of essays produced and corrected by teachers for the first time. Additionally, REDASP was established alongside the São Paulo State Mathematics Olympiad (OMASP) in the same year, serving as another initiative to ensure students achieve the expected learning outcomes and are well-prepared for exams, such as the vestibular.
By the end of May 2024, students from the 6th grade of elementary school to the 3rd grade of high school had generated over 4.6 million essays. The number of texts produced in the 2024 school year marked a 41.7% increase compared to the total number of essays corrected during the entire second semester of the previous year (2023). Motivated by these statistics and the success of OMASP, REDASP was created and aimed not only to recognize students with gold, silver and bronze medals, but also to promote a greater enthusiasm for reading and writing in schools.
The inaugural REDASP event took place from August 19 to 27, 2024, with the days organized by grade level in ascending order, starting with the 6th grade and concluding with the 3rd year of high school. The pre-selection occurred on September 6, the municipal classification on October 18, and the announcement of the qualifiers on October 21. Initially, it was projected that 125,000 students would receive awards in 2024.