A few of the pieces students have written in class over the years, kept exactly as they wrote them.
Ian, 6th grade Fiction
In the City
In the city, there is a car. Near the car there is a skyscraper. Beside the skyscraper is an identical skyscraper.
In the city, there is a blue, shiny, car. A married couple inside are having a blast, listening to the radio on full volume. In the skyscraper near the car, workers are working on their laptops, studying economics.
In the sky, there is a plane. American flight 11 takes off from Boston Logan Airport at 7:59 am. 5 hijackers sit quietly, preparing to hijack the plane.
Back in the city, there is a blue, shiny, car. They park in the World Trade Center parking lot in downtown NYC. As they walk into the building, they fix their collar.
In the city, a burglar comes up to the car and steals it. Nobody sees it, and he gets away with stealing.
In the sky, there is an American Airlines plane. The hijackers get up and threaten the crew and passengers. They stab two flight attendants.
In the airport, Boston ATC commands American Airlines flight 11. They don’t respond. They think it is just a malfunction.
In the city, the couple realizes their car is stolen. They left a tracker in the car, so they could track the burglar down.
In the city, the couple rush out the door, but they can only wait, as the burglar racecars away. They feel upset, and they decide to call the cops.
In the sky, the Hijackers take over the plane and direct it to the twin towers. Passengers scream and try to get their last messages to their parents and friends out.
In the sky, the plane starts to descend. Some of the passengers pass out from the sudden jerk. “Altitude: 10,000. 9,000. 8,000.” the automated voice says.
In the city, the cops do a high speed pursuit on the blue, shiny, car, trying to get the burglar to give up. It starts out as a couple cops, then a few, then several cops around the city hunt the car down.
In the city, residents hear sirens on the streets, and they see flashing lights passing by at more than a hundred miles per hour. They are afraid, but not as afraid as in a couple minutes.
In the sky, the plane descends to a dangerously low altitude, before going full speed into the North Twin Tower. Screams erupt from everywhere in the city. No one knows when or where the next plane would strike. The tower collapses in a fury of debris.
In the city, the couple watches the news as they hide behind a building. They are scared for life. They watch a piece of debris land a few feet away from them.
In the city, the couple runs away into the colossal mall of skyscrapers and high rises. They don’t know where they are, but they keep running. At the towers, another plane strikes the South tower. The World Trade Center is gone as the South Tower collapses exactly like the other tower did.
In the airport, the ATC conducts that every flight must be stopped. Every flight. Then the military planes take off from the Air Force Base and guard the skies.
In the city, the couple finally stop running. They reach the riverside boardwalk and sit down on a bench to watch the chaos unfold. “Oh, Osama Bin Laden.” They say.
Sahil, 7th grade Fiction
“No, I think you were confused, and you passed out so you were probably imagining. It was tough last night and we know we’re going to get through this. Jason halted and put his sweaty hands on his knees. He thought about what happened last night, as he was still very intrigued at how the cop looked at him. The cop had something to do with it, I know he had something to do with it. Um probably just tripping out, Jason imagined.
Tristan, 4th grade Fiction
Cock-a-doodle doo! The sun was shining, the sheep were bleating, and Lion, the dog, was licking Joe’s face. “Today’s finally the day the darn tootin’ milk won’t go everywhere, Grandpa. Grandpa-time to teach me how to milk a gosh darn cow without getting the milk everywhere.” Lion chuffed happily in the background.
Zev, 4th grade Fiction
Joe was traveling to China so he could pray at the White Horse Temple to be young again. Joe loved his life. He thought that life was an amazing thing, so he wanted to relive life. His life was filled with fun events. It was like a big adventure movie he was in where he lived a life so awesome he wanted to do it again. He thought that if he went to a sacred temple he could pray to God and go back to his 30s.
Oliver S., 3rd grade Poetry
Three minor gods will travel west
And find what has been lost.
The son of the sea god will decide
The fate of the major gods.
But in the end one will die
by his father’s wrath.
All will return
with glory and pride,
though some friends
will have been destroyed.
On the old site this poem was printed 3 times in a row — shown once here. Confirm that was a page glitch, not intentional.
Nathan, 6th grade Fiction
Juan pressed the ski option on the shoes and shot down the hill, gathering speed as he went faster and faster. The trees went past him at incredible speed. Suddenly, a figure appeared in the middle of Juan’s path. Juan smashed into the creature and both he and the creature went flying, tumbling down the snowy hill. Unsheathing his knife, Juan screamed, “I’ll get you this time!” Juan felt for the creature’s body. “Man, this guy is awfully fluffy,” Juan thought. “This will make for an amazing coat!” Then, with a quick swipe of large, powerful claws, Juan was hurled onto the ground. Juan began to run, “Or maybe he’s gonna make a coat out of meee!” Juan thought as he began to run. Juan heard a roar and turned around to see a massive polar bear standing on its hind legs.
Lucas H., 2nd grade Fiction
Meanwhile…in Lucas’ room…Lucas woke up at the sound of crackling, he rolled over and thought, Cyrus burned the eggs. He was wide awake and felt energetic. He leapt out of bed and ran to the kitchen thinking, Now I know why Mum glared at him!
I shouted at Cyrus, “You burned the eggs!”
Cyrus argued, “Then you make the eggs!”
“Oh come on,” I said. “Good thing that I know how to cook,” I mumbled under my breath. I put on my apron and got a new pan, but just then my parents came in and they gasped. “What?”
“I am just cooking eggs,” I said. They thought this must be a dream.
Auggie, 3rd grade Fiction
As Alex went to the football field, he saw a student going to the bathroom. He quickly dove into the nearest closet. Alex looked around. He saw footballs, basketballs and shelves full of hula hoops. He then heard the sound of walking. He looked behind him. There was the gym teacher, looking for something. He hid, pretending to be a sack of basketballs. The coach, fooled by his disguise, picked him up by his legs and threw him on the hard concrete of the basketball court.
Alex looked around. All he saw was stars and birds, orbiting around his head. When he finally came to his senses, he saw a hoop and a sack of basketballs coming toward his face. It hit his face. He then saw that his whole class was playing on the football field. He quickly ran to join them.
On the green football field, Alex tried to play football, but the teacher chirped “Alex is absent. You’re not Alex.” Alex walked away, cursing the late note that he made. “Hey Alex! Watch out for the math test tomorrow!” Elixabeth hollered.
Arnauv, 5th grade Fiction
Justin trudged along the tile to their private movie theater. He walked down the dark purple carpet stairs. He jumped onto the third aisle. Not too close to the screen but not too far away. He always sits there. He flicked through the channels until he finally found one on the chest that belonged to George Washington. First, he saw the chest which had some spiral patterns out rusty metal which was laid on the wood. The screen then showed the list of all the items in the chest. Justin noticed the small hidden paper. Not knowing what it was, Justin grew curious. He tried searching it on his computer. No luck. He decided to go try to see it in person- just needing an excuse to get out of the house for a few days. He decided to tell his mom that he was going to go camping trip with his friends. At least, she thinks, Justin DOES have friends.
Ivan, 4th grade Fiction
Wow am I in heaven? Look at that beautiful brown water, the fatberg. And the goldfish- they’re still alive! The other rats come and sniff me, then they go to the other side of the sewer and start to whisper. Finally they come back. One of the rats says, “What’s your name?”
“My name is Rex.”
“Where do you come from?” asks another rat.
“I am from a haunted house,” answers Rex.
“You’re welcome to stay here if you want,” says two rats at once. Jinx! Says one of the two rats. “Sorry my name is Henry and this other bud is Dumb.”
The other rat looked like he really wanted to throw an insult but couldn’t say it. “The corner over there is open to take. “Thanks,”says Rex. As Rex crawled to the corner a few rats started looking at him a bit suspiciously. As Rex was was thinking what other creation he should make, a fatberg (a congealed mass of fat and other non-decomposable items),was floating his way! The fatberg started sticking to a different fatberg as the now giant fatberg came to a halt. Rex used his forepaws and grabbed a huge, delicious piece of goop. He ate it and it was good.
Maureen, 7th grade Poetry
Dividing Lines
Instruction printed with the poem: (to read this poem, first read all the way through, ignoring the highlighting, then, read the first stanza, then just the blue highlighted words in the second stanzas)
Dividing Lines
There
Are So
Many
Shades
Of
Grey.
Where
Does The
Dividing Line
Lie?
In our skin?
In our bias?
In our lies?
In our honesty?
Everywhere we go
We make
Our
Thoughts
decisions
Intentions
Then
Actions
make
Lives
All that we do
depends on
When we see
The dividing line in
Ourselves
Oliver R., 5th grade Fiction
“Have you been staring at me this whole time or are you just creepy?” Preston said.
“Ha! Ha! You must be the new kid.” the blonde girl said back. “My name is Amelia.”
Preston answered, “Is there any entertainment here?”
Amelia replied, “there is a movie theatre downtown”
“Want to do it together?”
Preston just met Amelia, but he thought she was pretty nice, so he said yes.
It was scorching hot. Preston was playing hot potato with the steering wheel. “The theatre is on Filch Ave., right?” asked Preston.
“No!” Amelia barked. “It’s on Mid Street. You just passed it!”
“Americans.” Preston muttered.
Maitreyi, 7th grade Fiction
A pickpocket by profession, Piper lived on thievery. Whether It was a dollar or two from someone’s wallet to get her something to eat at the McDonald’s nearby, or a ring that she slipped off someone’s finger and sold to Sam down the street for a tidy price. You couldn’t say that Piper was homeless, as she always had a place to sleep at night. Yet, she never really had a home. Sometimes she wished she was back at Madame Von Trapp’s Orphanage for girls. Yet, she didn’t regret the fact that she left. She remembered that night very clearly.
Savannah, grade 3 Poetry
Time For A Dog
Time For A Dog
It was a Saturday morning,
life was so boring,
‘til the commander of the household
called,“Time for a council!”
Time to get a dog.”
We stood straight up,
and ran straight out,
dusting the leader behind.
We ran and ran and ran and ran,
I felt like I could fly.
We stopped and slid,
and scuffed our shoes,
and ran right to the line.
The sign stood up, proudly high
Adopt a dog tonight.
We looked around only to find
We still were last in line!
Yoav, grade 2 Essay
Opposites-Diva and Flea
Diva the dog, travels out of her courtyard because she is changing from a scaredy cat to brave. Flea is a “flaneur” because he goes anywhere. But, he is afraid of the insides of buildings. Diva gives Flea confidence. In the story “Diva and Flea” by Mo Willems, Mo Willems uses opposites to show characters changing. Mrs. Kim helped me to change, to become a better writer, just like Diva and Flea changed.
At the beginning of the story, Diva is a chicken and Flea is brave, because he is a flaneur. They are opposites. Mo Willems uses opposites to show you that the characters change. “As soon as Flea saw the small dog, he was captivated. As soon as Diva saw the large cat, she yelped and ran away.”
In the middle of the story, Diva gets braver. Finally, Flea smiles a helpful smile and Diva takes a big step out of the courtyard she’d never been out of before. “…leaving behind the one place she had lived her whole entire life.”
Theo, 5th grade Personal narrative
I was lying around at nap time. I was about the age of three or four and I got this idea to sneak into the library to snag a good ol’ picture book to bash peoples heads with the book, or maybe, I could read to myself like any other person without the mind of a psycho. Well, both were genius. Ok ok, I was quite annoying and chaotic.
I sneakily crawled toward the library shelf that was looming over me menacingly, almost daring me to go in and grab as many books as I wanted. I was crawling lopsidedly… I was flying at least one thousand miles per hour, or that’s what it seemed like to me.
Wait, is that corner sharp? I thought as I was approaching at what I thought was light speed towards the corner of the wall Theo don’t go there I furiously thought but there was no stopping me then… mayday Mayday Mayday MAYDAY! Then it all went black..
Theo’s rewrite of above paragraphs:
Accelerate, I thought to myself. My self control replied with Aye aye sir, full steam ahead! In the background I heard pumping and a faint, this is all em’ can take, no, No, NO, This can’t be all ey’ can take! We got strict orders from the sir I’m sorry but they’re bound to fade soon, Who? I thought about speeding up by the second. Yer’ self control sir. Aw shucks I mean what’s a few faded brain cells? I mean sir…, the amount of brain cells you have…, It’s uh, Its what? I thought. It’s at a negative number I mean you are pretty dumb yknow aww- shut up I don’t care. Sir, Sir, SIR, CAN YOU HEAR ME? BAM BAM BAM, Dammit they aren’t going away. I mean it’s not like they cared, well anyway at this god-like speed I must be running over the hundreds, thousands of pencil-shaving-soldiers , I thought Wait , is that corner sharp? I thought as I was approaching at what I thought was light speed towards the corner of the little room’s entrance, No.. it can’t be! My self control had evacuated my brain and made me go too fast! I mean it can’t entirely be MY fault I mean, ok yeah my fault but some of it was self control right?
