Story Resolution Challenge Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

A Grade 6 English contest in which a learner extends a story to a logical ending and tells it aloud within five minutes, marked out of 100 for the extension, oral interpretation, voice and stage presence.

Story Resolution Challenge is a storytelling round with a twist: the job is not only to tell a story well but to bring one to a satisfying close. The name and the first scoring line, story extension, point to a learner who takes a story and carries it forward to its ending, then delivers that ending aloud as a performance.

In the template it is a Grade 6 item, the top of the upper-primary stage. Each learner enters on their own, boys and girls together, and performs in English. A round is capped at five minutes, with a warning at four minutes thirty seconds. The template does not print what the learner is given to work from or how long they may prepare, so confirm the story material and any preparation time in the organiser brief before the day.

The 100 marks split four ways. Story extension carries 35 for originality, a logical ending, consistent characters and sound language. Oral interpretation carries another 35 for message, emotion, mood, character and dramatic impact. Voice projection and stage presence carry 15 each, covering clear speech, varied pauses, pitch and tone, and confident posture, expression and gestures.

Organisers run it because it tests two skills together: composing, which means thinking through cause and effect to a believable ending, and performing, which means making the audience feel it. The even split between the two means a clever ending read in a flat voice and a lively delivery of a weak ending both leave marks behind.

Where Story Resolution Challenge is run

In the data this item belongs to one template, a Philippine government-run learner festival held at division, regional and national levels. Finishing a story and telling it aloud is also a common literacy and drama exercise in classrooms in many countries, though competition rules differ from event to event.

• Philippines

Key facts

• Individual entry, open to boys and girls alike.
• Grade 6 only; the template maps this to roughly ages 11 to 12, but entry is by grade level, not age.
• Performed in English.
• Marked out of 100: story extension 35, oral interpretation 35, voice projection 15, stage presence 15.
• Five-minute limit, with a warning at four minutes thirty seconds.
• Ideas (not rules) for practice: finish a story that stops at a lost key, a storm on market day or a new pupil arriving, each with a clear turning point and an ending that follows from it.

On eTalenter, Story Resolution Challenge is filed under Literacy and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Story Resolution Challenge is most often entered as an Individual competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to around 5 minutes where a limit is set.

What judges look at in Story Resolution Challenge

What a Story Resolution Challenge panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• Story extension, 35 marks: originality, a logical ending, characters who stay true to how they were introduced, and correct language; an ending that arrives from nowhere or contradicts the story so far loses marks here.
• Oral interpretation, 35 marks: the message, emotion, mood, character and dramatic impact of the telling; reading the words without feeling them is the usual way to lose these.
• Voice projection, 15 marks: clear speech, varied pauses, pitch and tone, and enough volume to reach the back of the room.
• Stage presence, 15 marks: confidence, authenticity, posture, expression and gestures that fit the story rather than distract from it.
• Since the two biggest criteria carry equal weight, a learner who plans the ending carefully and also performs it well beats one who excels at only one of the two.
• Finishing inside the five minutes protects every criterion, because a story stopped before its ending cannot earn the extension marks.

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Story Resolution Challenge under Scoring Setup, or start from the judge scoring and tabulation guide.

How to prepare for Story Resolution Challenge

How entrants and their teachers usually get Story Resolution Challenge right on the day:

• Practise ending stories: take the opening of any short story and write three possible endings, then pick the one that follows most naturally from what the characters have shown.
• Check consistency before speaking: list each character’s traits and make sure the ending does not contradict them.
• Add a turning point, a moment where something changes, so the ending feels earned instead of tacked on.
• Train the performance separately: tell the same ending as relief, as surprise and as sadness, and notice how pitch, pace and pauses change.
• Use deliberate pauses before the key moment; silence is cheap drama and counts toward voice marks.
• Time every run and aim for three and a half to four minutes, with an ending that can be shortened if the 4:30 warning arrives early.
• Practise good English grammar and tense, since language is part of the extension criterion; read the ending aloud and fix anything that sounds clumsy.
• After a lost round, ask which half let you down, the ending or the delivery, and rework only that half.

Frequently asked questions

Is Story Resolution Challenge judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Individual entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

What is the Story Resolution Challenge?

It is a Grade 6 storytelling contest in this festival template: the learner extends a story to a logical ending and tells it aloud in English within five minutes.

Is it the same as Story Retelling?

No. Story Retelling is a Grade 3 item that is judged on how well a known story is retold, while this Grade 6 item rewards extending a story to its own ending as well as performing it.

How long does the learner have?

Five minutes at most, with a warning at four minutes thirty seconds.

Is it judged individually or as a team?

Individually. Each learner performs on their own.

Want the full judging picture? Read the judge scoring and tabulation guide, or browse every literacy competition item.