By Heather Lusk
Four Union elementary students can add “published author” to their list of accomplishments.
The students from second grade teacher Kelly Masters’ class were selected to be part of an anthology, “listening still,” published by the Partnership for Young Writers. The publication features poems, stories, essays, articles and other writings by 175 Indiana students in preschool through eighth grade made from more than 1,000 submissions.
“What better way to give kids a reason to write, because usually they write, and then I’m the only one who sees it,” Masters said. “Now they have a real purpose and a real authentic audience.”
The Zionsville students, now third graders, received copies of the book that was released in December and found it very cool to see their writing in print.
Louisa Santos wrote a short story about a rainstorm in a cabin, based on personal experience during vacation. Noah Powlen wrote a poem about the ocean and sounds related to the subject – seashells, seagulls, smooth sand. He chose his submission because “my poem was just better than all the other poems I wrote.”
Camille Twitchell, whose haiku about summer was selected, struggled to choose between five pieces of work. Ainsley Grey’s short story about getting ice cream appears in the book, but she also submitted a poem.
“As a teacher, you try to instill all of these techniques, all of these good tools that writers will use, and you just hope they will replicate that in their own writing,” Masters said.
All four students said they would like to submit in the future, but most said they would do something different.
“The more stories I read, the more I want to write,” Noah said.
To budding writers, “don’t think about it as if you’re going to do a contest, just write what you would normally do,” Ainsley said.
“My class last year, they were just talented writers,” Masters said. “I knew someone would be chosen. The writing was just phenomenal.”
