week8-10

"We found safety"

By Katy Turner
BFA St. Albans, Grade 11 Read more »

A peace of me

By Erica Dunphy
Franklin Central School, Grade 6

The peace sign defines me as myself -- its crazy, spunky feeling and atmosphere opens my imagination. Its aroma creates my creativity and its peacefulness makes me want to scream and yell for greatness and goodness.That is just the beginning of the definition.

The shape of a smile

By Cassie Hutchinson
Waits River Valley School, Grade 8

“Hayley! You're gonna miss the bus!” Mom screamed from behind my closed eyes.
“Mom I'm coming. Chill out!” I replied sleepily, not wanting to go to school. It didn't help that I had to wake up at 5:30 to be on the bus at 6:30 because of my annoying hour and a half bus ride. Read more »

A medal

By Sarah Rathbun
Vergennes Elementary School, Grade 3

I won a medal for the "Punt, Pass and Kick" competition. It is shiny and it is pretty. It is amazing. I like my medal. I like my medal because it is very special to me. It is my first medal. My medal is special to me.

Clothes

By Georgia Parke
Stowe High School, Grade 10

My shoes are all worn down. The laces unraveled a few days ago. The soles are pretty much molded to my feet, and a few other people's too. Of course, there are drawings along the inner edge that are carelessly smudged and hidden by dirt. I've tried to make the rubber whiter using toothpaste, which only sort of worked. There are various marks on the canvas from food, grass and an intentional-looking marker streak that pulses of subtle revenge. Read more »

The Bus

By Cam McCusker
Cardigan Mt. School, Grade 9

Kids pile on
Cool kids first
For the runt of the school
The bus is the worst.
Chocolate milk
Is poured onto hair
By the school bully
Or just on a dare.
The bus driver turns
And yells out his lungs
Too late for him
Chaos has begun.
Windows fly open
Words are now yelled
Fingers get flipped
And trash gets propelled.

Three words for change

By Emily Mulvihill
Mount Mansfield Union High School, Grade 10 Read more »

Grandma's jewelry

By Kalie Marie Sweet
Franklin Central School, Grade 6

Feathers and Indian symbols. It shows how Grandma loves unique jewelry, how she likes how no one else wears them, how it points out how much she adores all cultures. When I look at her earrings feathers hang from them. I see a proud and majestic eagle and people dancing around a fire. I observe how my grandmother expresses herself, how she doesn’t mind what people say. A word to explain my grandmother is.....beautiful no matter what she wears or how she dresses, she will always shine in my eyes.

Unforgettable Tuesday Morning

By Sarah Barker
Shrewsbury Mountain School, Grade 6

I was waiting at the top of my driveway for the bus. Five minutes passed and still no sign it. Finally, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the long yellow deathtrap of a bus clunking down the road. It came to a halt six feet before me. The doors flung open, and I boarded. When I sat in the seat, the bus driver closed the doors and started to drive. I turned to my friends and began to chat. Read more »

Silent Bus

By Austin Kim
Cardigan Mt. School, Grade 9

It was just a regular bus that I rode after school. Friends, workers, old men and all kinds of people clogged together to get through the narrow door. Some of them were euphoric, while others seemed terrorized, as if something bad would happen. Read more »

Bridget, the bus and bullying

By Eliza Rittenhouse Putnam
The Sharon Academy, Grade 9 Read more »

Reflection

By Anna Nelson
Haverhill Cooperative Middle School, Grade 8

On the bus, I sit quietly. I rarely talk to anyone; I keep to myself. No one notices my silence, I don't mind.

I am the oldest on my bus, we don't bother to pick up the high school students right away. I can't sit with my boyfriend, or any of my other friends that have grown up. My friends that have seemed to have
just moved on. Read more »

Fortress of solitude

By Jah Robertson
Burlington High School, Grade 12

fumes in my tomb
ancestors in my grave
Bible in both hands
Please believe i will pray
deserted with no purpose
the worst, no wait worthless
not perfect but i work it
versus no just verses
the whole alphabet
letter z im after that
confusion from a to z
memories remember me
Sky the place i see
God the name i breath
sins, the way i plee
but still blind when i can see
my conviction but not prison
deaf screams but i listen
eye lids closed blindly
in the dark you can't find me Read more »

The Ring

By Amanda Owen
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10 Read more »

The camera

By Paige Farrington
Rice Memorial High School, Grade 12

Albums and albums of pictures live on the shelf in our living room. Black and whites, family portraits and different family events are housed in them. My mother's camera has taken them all. The camera defines her; wherever she is, it is always there with her. No matter how big or small the event is, she is the designated photographer. Read more »

Waves

By Eliza Thomas
Renaissance School, Grade 5

My sister loves to surf. On Nantucket, she goes to the beach every warm day. You can't keep the waves away from her. The water is like her other home. Winning or losing a contest, she keeps practicing. She will go to the beach, and sometimes she will practice getting up on the board on the sand!
Our family supports her practicing by making sure she gets a ride to the beach, giving her good advice and confidence. She is only looking at colleges near the waves because she can't keep away. Read more »

Object

By Chester Barber
Renaissance School, Grade 6

The object was a strange one. It was blue. Maybe it was red, or green. It was a triangular rectangle. Its cleanliness was dirty. Its shiny paper cover was rusty. It had no limbs, but it had four legs and three arms. It's spherical in a blocky way. It's naturally manmade.
It makes no noise, but it sounds like a toaster. It doesn't move but it's stuck in perpetual motion. It has no name, but it's called Steve.

Narnia Kantal

By Ezekiel Mulder
Homeschooled, Grade 1

One thing that really defines me is a clubhouse called Narnia Kantal. It is in the loft of the barn on our property. It has a hole in the wall that leads to a dark secret space. There is a door from the loft that leads out of the barn. This is really frightening because you are ten feet up. I meet there with my brother to talk about things like what we are going to do. We play there. We sometimes make things there. Read more »

Photographs

By Obadiah Mulder
Homeschooled, Grade 3

One object that defines me are two pictures in a bi-fold frame. One is of me at three months old lying in a carseat wrapped in a bunting. I look very happy. My head is tilted slightly to the left and my little fists are by my sides.

The other picture is of my great-grandmother. She is in a blue dress with flowers on it. She is smiling and her skin has freckles. Her hair is shiny brownish gold. My hand is in my mouth and my head is lolling sharply to the left. Read more »

The bus

By Brianna Boucher
Franklin Central School, Grade 6

Sitting, waiting on a smelly old bus. That’s when my brother told me we had just passed a sign that said “Now Leaving Kansas.” So I went up and tried to explain to the driver that our stop was back in Kansas, but he wouldn’t stop. He just kept going faster and faster until the bus came to a screeching halt. Read more »

My pride

By Asbjorn Eriknauer
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

It’s what I am, where I came from, what my history is. It’s everything.
Without it nobody can tell who I am, and without me nobody can tell what it is.

I keep it high in the sky and take it down at night.

If it burned up in flames, I would be terrified. It would destroy my reputation, break down my walls of pride and take away the respect I deserve. It’s my pride and I will wear it on my chest to the end of the day.

I am . . .

By Mimi Ewald
Crossett Brook Middle School, Grade 8

I am scratched. I get tired. I get dropped. And I get lost. I get poked. I get old. I can be loud or I can be quiet. Sometimes I am sad and sometimes I am angry. Sometimes I am wild and sometimes I get crazy. I’m stuffed into pockets and put onto counters. The front of me is black and smooth, shiny and pretty. while the back of me is hard and silver, scratched from being dropped and thrown and played with. Read more »

Baseball games

By Lucas Russell
Crossett Brook Middle School, Grade 8

I take my glove out of my blue Under Armor bag to warm-up. I slip it on and slam my fist against the soft, smooth Nike sign deep in my palm. Dylan and I walk over to the sideline to warm up our arms. “Pop” goes my glove as the small white sphere makes contact with the brown leather on my hand. I take the ball out of my glove and look at it; it has a few small scuff marks from batting practice but other than that it looks brand-new. I throw the ball back to him and it strikes his glove with another loud “pop”. Read more »

That little black thing

By Jill Rathke
Crossett Brook Middle School, Grade 8 Read more »

My pointe shoes

By Emma Rivers
Crossett Brook Middle School, Grade 8 Read more »

My Ipod

By Molly Mitchell
Crossett Brook Middle School, Grade 8 Read more »

Abject object

By Dustin Elphege Finer
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 12

Define myself by an object,
What madness.

Tyler Durden: “You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your khakis.”

I defy you to define me by a definitive object.
By a whimsical, wasteful word like “wonderful.”
Better luck describing me with words like “ragglesnurf” and “snizbat”
and objects like a “rampulgulper” and the “mimpledeez.”
I abhor you trying to trying to whore my identity to one Read more »

Wander

By Braeden Hughes
Mount Mansfield Union High School, Grade 9

The morning dawns damp and chilly and the bus windows drip with a thick frosting of opaque fog. I trace rivers of condensation along the glass and listen with straining ears to the quiet blanketing the slate gray world outside. Inside however, the yellow walls contain a caffeine-induced frenzy, sound waves ricocheting around the claustrophobic space. Crushed into the corner of a maroon vinyl seat, I moodily examine the crumpled candy wrappers littering the floor and allow my mind to wander… Read more »

New Busdriver

By Conner LaFromboise
Chelsea Public School, Grade 10 Read more »

Ben

By Caroline Miller
Hartford Memorial Middle School, Grade 8 Read more »