By Jessica Edwards
Home-schooled eighth-grader Sasha Mackowiak thought
"diacritical" was an interesting word when she read it in the Scripps Spelling
Bee rule book, so she looked it up.
Mackowiak was glad she noticed the word, because correctly spelling
"diacritic" earned her a third place among 160 participating in the state
championship Scripps Spelling Bee in Anchorage Feb. 26.
Diacritical marks are accent marks or dots over letters, often in words
from foreign languages, which indicate pronunciation. Examples are the Germanic umlaut,
those two little dots over the "i" in "naïve," or the accent mark on
the "e" in "café."
Mackowiak tied with two others for third place in her first trip to the
state bee. She missed the bee last year by placing second in the regional home school bee.
Haines School eighth-grader Deanna Michinski advanced to the fifth
round. It was her second state bee in three years.
Craig eighth-grader Oliver Price won the bee and a trip to the national
competition by correctly spelling "meniscus," and Juneau seventh-grader Brayden
Wrightson placed second after missing "obumbrate." "It’s hard to
believe," Mackowiak said of her third-place finish.
Mackowiak correctly spelled "portfolio,"
"neologism," "fennec," "corpuscle," and
"diacritic" to make the final eight before she faltered on
"thermophilic," replacing the "o" with an "a."
"I was a little bit nervous when I heard ‘neologism,’
but it was spelled pretty much the way it sounded," she said.
The bee took all day, she said, but rounds in the afternoon went more
quickly, as the majority of spellers were eliminated in the first rounds.
Before the final rounds, the bee announcer stopped to acknowledge the
final eight spellers. "It was really amazing. They said, ‘Congratulations, you
are the top eight spellers in the state.’ It felt really great."
She said she was lucky she didn’t get "mayonnaise" in
the second round, as another speller did. "I had forgotten it had two
"n’s".
To prepare for the state bee, Mackowiak studied the 1,000 words in the
Scripps Spelling Bee "Spell It" book and plastered words on her walls at home.
Mom Martha Mackowiak quizzed her.
Mackowiak learned languages of origin for different words. She
memorized Latin-derived words ending in "ible" by stringing them together in a
sentence: "It is plausible I am susceptible to judge people incorruptible and
credible." The word "amicable" she remembers by breaking it into three
words: "Am-I-cable."
Mackowiak said she’s a good speller because she reads a lot, and
because she began studying the Greek roots of words two years ago.
A good memory helps, as well. When Mackowiak hears a new word spoken,
she can often remember reading it.
