Once upon a time, there was a skeleton named Tommy. He made people disappear by snapping. He was a puppeteer so he enjoyed making puppets. He had a friend named Ford.
Continue reading “The Skeleton That Saved Another Skeleton”By: Johnae'
Be the One
Be the one that doesn’t give up
Be yourself no matter what
Grade 10
Untitled First Draft
Melissa sighted at her newfound situation, sitting under the table with the intention to overhear what Julian, her brother, said about her to his friends when she wasn’t there.
She, for one, already knew Julian talked about her to his friends, they’d giggle when she passed by them in the school halls, so it wasn’t that hard to notice.
Although she wasn’t sure of what she was even trying to accomplish by snooping into their conversations, she was already waiting for them to come into the living room, so what else was there to do?
As soon as she heard close steps, she moved to the middle of the table in case they sat down too, which turned out to be a good idea, since Julian and his friends all immediately sat down.
“So, about the Melissa thing,” Xavier, Julian’s middle school friend muttered.
Melissa could hear Julian groan in what she thought was irritation before he spoke, “Enough about that! It’s stressing me out, man.”
Stressing him out? Why would it? Melissa was the stressed one if anything. What were they talking about?
Luo Yi, Julian’s friend, hummed before adding to the conversation a comment that made it all bittersweet. “I think she’ll like the cake decorations, why stress? Don’t be silly.”
Huh?
Melissa popped her head out from under the table to find the three friends staring at her and giggling. When she looked in front of her, there was a cake propped up by a small table.
“Happy birthday, Melissa,” Julian said with a laugh.
Luo Yi was right, she loved the cake decorations.
This was a writing exercise from a Young Authors’ Book Project session at Phelps ACE High School. Here’s the prompt that the student used:
Write a story about what is happening in the picture below. Be sure to describe the setting, character(s), the main action of the story, and how it is resolved.
By: Jaylen, Grade 6
Untitled
This is Utopia, the city of peace. Utopia has everything you would ever want in a “perfect world” There is no trash, everyone is peaceful, there’s no violence, the list goes on and on.
Continue reading “Untitled”By: Idris, Samara, Sy, Pearl, Leo, and Ruby, Grades 1-5
After-School Writing Lab on Pandas
When the giant pandas left the National Zoo, 826DC shared panda-themed writing prompts with AWL. Here’s what they wrote!
Continue reading “After-School Writing Lab on Pandas”By: Tao, age 11
The Myth of How We Have Emotions
Once upon a time when the earth was still, ice tigers roamed the earth. At the time, earth was just a cold giant rock. The ice tigers showed no emotion on their faces. Suddenly, ice catfish came around the corner to where the ice tigers were gathered. Ice catfish was a good friend of theirs. “The fire animals are here!” he yelled. Ice catfish scrambled away before he could get burned. The ice tigers stood up in awareness, and next thing they knew, the fire animals appeared. Because fire can beat ice, the fire animals burnt faces of emotion. The fire people and animals only wanted to see happy, sad, angry, and more emotions on the ice tigers’ faces. Since the earth became hotter, the ice tigers evolved into other animals that were not ice. That is how we have emotions.
Published in The 826DC After-School Writing Lab Reader (Volume 1). Illustration by Tianqiao Xing.
By: Yoanabel, Grade 3
Advice to the Past
The advice I would give is
to end segregation because it’s not fair.
Also not to cheat on tests.
By: 826DC "The Thing with Feathers" Summer Workshop, 2018, Grades 2-7
Birds in the City
We hear birds in the city.
A bird chirps when singing a song.
When birds chirp, it is harmony.
El sonido de los pájaros es el sonido de la naturaleza.
Continue reading “Birds in the City”
By: 826DC After-School Writing Lab Students
Letter to an Alien Pen Pal
Dear Geeblegorp,
How are you? We are so excited to be your new pen pals from Earth! Continue reading “Letter to an Alien Pen Pal”
By: Sebastian, Grade 3
Pine and Willow with the Bullies
In the beginning, there was a little tree called Willow. He lived in a park near a little pond with other trees. One day, the trees started picking on him because he was different.
One of the trees said, “Why are you sad?”
Willow said, “Because you are teasing me.”
There was another tree named Pine. Pine looked like a Christmas tree. The other trees also teased Pine because he was the only pine tree.
The other trees said, “Hey Pine! Why do you look like a Christmas tree?”
Pine said, “That’s because I am a Christmas tree.”
The other trees said, “Of course you are! That’s why you are different, and we’re smarter than you.”
So when Pine grew up, he saw Willow getting bullied.
Then Pine said, “STOP!”
The other tree said, “What are you going to do?”
So Willow said, “You heard him, stop!”
And so Pine and Willow became friends, because Willow saved Pine from being teased and Pine saved Willow from being teased. The End.
Originally published in This Time They Hear You. Illustration by Leslie Osmont.