YWP for 1st Quarter: due Fri, Oct 23 by 8pm
Post the title of your piece here. Also, name and paste the full prompt (or Challenge) you responded to, and paste a link to your piece on the YWP website. For options, see https://youngwritersproject.org/challenges20.
Title: Rewind the Clock
ReplyDeletePrompt/Challenge: Fame. It’s not unusual to daydream about what life would be like if we “made it big.” But fame and fortune can have their downsides too. Write from the perspective of a fictional celebrity who struggles with their fame and whose only wish is to be an average, unknown person again.
Link: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/36412
Hi, Abby. I like that you chose this prompt. It’s interesting to think that celebrities want to be boring normal people, like us, because we always want to be famous like them. In the beginning it says that she wanted to be known but now she has changed her mind. I really like that you included examples of what she wants to do, like grocery shopping and going for walks, because that's not something that I think about. It made me realize all the things I would do on a daily basis that I couldn't do anymore if I was famous. You also acknowledge that it’s fun to be a hero to other people but you wrote “I just don’t want to be that anymore”. I think that was a strong line. Reading it, I could feel weight on her shoulders. It gives the celebrity a more down to earth feel, like she is longing for a quiet life.
DeleteI like how you include details that other people might not have included; like the bright sun causing you to briefly cover your eyes. Also the face mask detail, and how you set it up happening in the climate we are in today. I could picture the setting and relate it to one that I have seen before, the details and your actions in the story helped me to realize that, and make the connection.
DeleteAbby, this is a test. I am wondering if you receive an automatic email when someone replies to one of your comments on the blog. If so, please email me to let me know.
DeleteTitle: Sinking Away
ReplyDeletePrompt/challenge: Sunset. Watch the sunset at dusk and write a poem, take pictures, or create a piece of art inspired by it, rendering as much vivid description or detail as possible.
Link: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/36422
I Madelyn, this poem was really good. A lot of people might have only talked about what they could see when talking about the sun set. I like how you talked about what you observed in your other senses to like what you heard. You did this in the line where you said "Crickets filled the air with noise, They left no room for the other sounds,". I also really liked in that line how you didn't just stop at hearing the crickets. Adding that second part really helped me feel like I was there with the noise of crickets all around. My favorite part was the last section. I like how you described the whole sunset, even it disappearing. It was really interesting how you used things like fire and sinking underwater to help you describe it.
DeleteI really liked the words that you chose to use in your poem. I especially liked your third stanza, “Slowly, orange shifted to red, And red faded to purple. Darkness began to drift down.” I think that this stanza is really well written, the way that you were able to use three different words that all conveyed a different emotion but still meant the same thing. I thought that the words you chose, shifted, faded, and drift all really helped me to envision the sunset and make the poem feel more alive than it would have if you had only used one of those verbs. I think that the format that you used was very fitting to the poem, the four lines for each stanza and only four stanzas. Even though it was a shorter poem, it was really able to draw a picture in my mind as I read it.
DeleteI really loved to read your poem Madelyn. I could really imagine what was going on as I read each stanza and it set a really beautiful picture. I felt like I could see the sunset forming in my head. I like how you said “the sky didn’t set a fire-- It left its colors quietly”. I have never thought about a sunset in this sense but it is a very clear description that really does make sense to you entire poem. Each line flowed into the next line very well and you can really see the jump to the next stanza very well. Overall you did a wonderful job on your YWP. -Abigail Dixon
DeleteTitle: My Bucket List
ReplyDeletePrompt/Challenge: Bucket. It’s never too early to write your bucket list! Pick one thing from your list to elaborate on. Reveal its importance to you and a way to achieve it. If you’re stuck, think about countries to visit, future creative accomplishments, or wild experiences like bungee jumping!
Link: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/36084
Hi Michael! This was a very interesting piece to read. It was very cool to hear about the opportunity that you had to go to Indonesia for a summer. Although it's unfortunate that you couldn't go because of COVID-19. Even though this wasn't like the other prompts that were more story based, it was still very neat to hear about how you wanted to learn about Indonesian culture. Because this was a prompt that didn't have a whole lot of room for description, I didn't think that there would be much, but I think that you were able to do a really good job of describing why you had this on your bucket list. I really enjoyed this, and I hope that you are able to go to Indonesia to check off your bucket list!
DeleteHi Mikey! First off, I really liked your piece. I felt that I could relate to what you said in the beginning about your bucket list expanding to more meaningful things now that you’re 15. That being said, what you described in this piece sounds cooler than anything on my bucket list. Before reading this, I had no idea that this program existed, let alone that you were doing it, and I think it sounds like an amazing experience. I really liked how you talked about your family’s experience with an Indonisian exchange student, and how the differences in their culture are part of what inspired you to travel there. I thought you did a great job of conveying how important the trip is to you through your writing, and as you said, it truly does sound like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m sorry that the pandemic got in the way this summer, but I hope you are able to take this adventure soon.
DeleteTitle: Masks
ReplyDeletePrompt/Challenge: General. Write about anything in any genre!
Link: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/36528
Your first and last line are masterful: "We don't like wearing this kind of rules." I love the atypical wording of "wearing rules." Also, I love it when in poem's last line, there's a shift, a punch-line, something that hits me, and your last line succeeds in that way. After all the talk about the negativity of wearing mask, you end with, "Because the world needs desire." Brava!
DeleteTitle: It's Not my Fault
ReplyDeletePrompt: Virus. Imagine you are talking to the coronavirus (hypothetically, you know, if a disease could talk). What would you say to it?
Link: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/36692
Hi, Addy! Your imagination of talking to the virus is pretty thoughtful and meaningful. I agree with your opinions and attitude of establishing the virus as a person. The virus actually is not only playing a role of killer in this world pandemic, but also the savior of the Earth. It’s intriguing to speak out these points of view by the virus “itself”. Your little fiction also shows the good method that you think may make a better situation, which is to listen to others and follow the rules. That’s the point that humans usually don’t have the same perspective, even though they’re facing the same hard situation. It’s so important to keep the balance of humans and the sources or lives on the earth.
DeleteHi Addy. I thought that this was very good. I thought that you did a really good job of giving the virus an important thing to say. The line that really struck me was "If you continue I fear there will be nothing left. So you see it's not really my fault." and the reason was I thought that this showed creative this was. Being able to envision the virus trying to tell the person asking the question why this was happening, and then to find that the answer was simply the virus wanting to maintain and protect the earth was a very interesting thing to read. I really think that this was an impactful response.
Delete(Something went wrong with the original response)
I really like how you envisioned the virus talking. I think that the way that you didn't make the virus out to be bad was a really good way of thinking about it. I think that the response you thought that the virus would give to your last question, when will this end, was really true. I agree that we have the power to beat the virus but because of places lifting their restraints too soon, people flat out ignoring the rules, and people not accepting the fact that the virus is a problem and needs to be dealt with has made the virus spread much more than it could have and has lasted longer as well. I think that if people had seen that going to crowded places was not only a threat to their health, but also to the people around them, then maybe we could have opened things up for good instead of this on and off business.
DeleteTitle: Winter is Waiting for Me
ReplyDeletePrompt: Winter Tales 2020: Write a short, descriptive poem or story about winter for Vermont Stage Company’s virtual presentation of Winter Tales in December. Be original! Go beyond hot chocolate, rosy cheeks, and Frosty. Convey the beauty and complexity of the season. Make Vermont Stage want to tell your story!
Link: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/36722
Hi, Katelyn, your poem is awesome! I like how you end with your poem by “a sample bottle golden in color.” and the “first batch”, which echoes the head of the poem. Your descriptions and verbes make this poem filled with images. I really enjoy reading your poem, because it’s like watching a video in my head, and the connection between syrup and winter is an amazing idea. Especially syrup has its own shiny golden color to be conspicuous in the white winter.
DeleteHi, Katelyn. I like that you chose to describe sugaring in your poem. I know a lot of people who sugar and it seems like an important memory for you. You wrote “the tail end of Winter, the gateway into spring” and that line really set the scene for me. And when you talk about walking down an icy path to the sugar house I could picture it in my mind. I felt like I was there with you, going down the path and walking in fresh snow. The way you wrote this poem, it felt like you were very determined. The fact that you didn’t care when you spilled the cheerios, you just wanted to see the syrup. I really enjoyed reading this. It felt real, not just like a poem that you wrote.
DeleteTITLE: Blanket of Leaves
ReplyDeletePROMPT: Seasonal. The setting of any piece of writing can have a major impact on its overall tone. Choose a seasonal location that invokes the general mood of fall or winter, such as a pumpkin patch or skating pond. In this piece, include details such as weather, hours of daylight, holidays that help describe the seasonal setting.
LINK: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/37062
Hi Isaiah! I loved your piece! I thought you put it together so nicely and I really liked how you told a story of your experience. My house also used to get pretty hectic around this time, so it was nice to hear that someone had the same feeling! I really liked how you described the weather as well, it was almost as though I could really feel the breeze as you were walking outside. I also liked how you ended the piece with you walking inside. I thought it was a great way to end it, and you contributed it nicely. I thought this piece was really well written and I enjoyed reading it!
DeleteI loved the way you described this moment. Your word choice really allowed me to picture this scene in my mind. The imagery was spot on. You painted a vivid visual image. I have also experienced many beautiful days with many fallen leaves while going on walks with my dad or by myself. It really is an amazing sight to see. You are also very lucky to have went out on a night with a full moon and with enough light coming through the trees to see the path back home. We sometimes tend to forget that later in the year it gets dark much earlier. The breathtaking sights around us can also cause us to lose track of time.
DeleteYou're piece made me think about experiences similar to yours and how they differed from each other. Also, the details of the leaves being different colors and how the breeze was cool and crisp, but not so cold as to bother you. Your forgetting of a flashlight was also an interesting one as it reminded me that winter is definitely coming it's getting darker sooner.
DeleteI thought that this was a really good piece of writing. You did a really good job of using imagery in this piece of work. The words that you used really helped me paint a picture in my mind. Also, I thought that the story of you walking on the trail was a very interesting one, and I think what made it so interesting was the way that everything was explained. Without that I think that it would have been very hard to really experience what was being written. It was really neat to experience the story in such great detail. I really did enjoy this piece. Great Job!
DeleteTITLE: Sweater Weather
ReplyDeletePROMPT: Seasonal. The setting of any piece of writing can have a major impact on its overall tone. Choose a seasonal location that invokes the general mood of fall or winter, such as a pumpkin patch or skating pond. In this piece, include details such as weather, hours of daylight, holidays that help describe the seasonal setting.
LINK: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/37118
Hi Liv! I really enjoyed your poem. I like how you hinted at holidays and never explicitly told what holidays they were, but it was clear enough to know what you were talking about. I thought it was very well crafted. I also liked how smoothly you went from one season to the next. It was very well written and I liked your word choices. I liked your line “Oh fall, how good you’ve been.” I don’t know if when you were writing this you were thinking about corona, but when I read this, I thought about how even though there have been all these restrictions placed upon us by this pandemic, fall has still managed to come in full swing and bring us that happy time of the year again. Fall is certainly a beautiful time of the year!!
DeleteIt was nice to read your poem. As I read it brought up many memories which I think is very good when writing a poem about things happening during a season. In some parts of the poem it seemed to rhyme a bit and that made the poem flow perfectly. The poem seemed to be saying all the good things that happen in fall but that we also have to know that winter is “just around the corner” as you said. You were able to fit so much into a not very long poem and that is wonderful. It seemed to have just enough detail to imagine colors and smells but also not too much so readers' minds can make their own things up. I loved the poem, you did a great job.
Delete-Abigail Dixon
TITLE: Pumpkin Patch
ReplyDeletePROMPT: Seasonal. The setting of any piece of writing can have a major impact on its overall tone. Choose a seasonal location that invokes the general mood of fall or winter, such as a pumpkin patch or skating pond. In this piece, include details such as weather, hours of daylight, holidays that help describe the seasonal setting.
LINK: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/37121
-Abigail Dixon
Hi Abby, I really liked your piece about fall and pumpkin picking. The images you put in the writing sounded very original, which in my opinion, is hard to do when talking about something like Fall or Winter. I liked your line, "A few bits caught on my woolen sweater, I hastily wiped them away," because it makes me feel there in your situation. I really liked your choice of words in the piece, and I thought those also helped to create vivid images in the text. This made me miss pumpkin patches because I didn't get to go this year!
DeleteTITLE: Pessimistic Reality
ReplyDeletePROMPT:In 1961, American scientist Richard Feynman, joint-receiver of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics, posed the following paraphrased question: If the human race and its collective knowledge were destroyed, apart from one sentence rich in information yet brief in its wording, what sentence would you leave?
LINK: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/37125
At first, when I glanced at your piece, I thought, "What? It's so short." But, of course, the prompt asked for just one sentence. And I as I tried to think of how I would have responded to this prompt, I realized how hard it was. You were clever at using punctuation to allow you to say as much as you did while still adhering to the constraint of one sentence.
DeleteBesides loving your message, I also find your wording delightful, especially your ending: "live in peace as we could not."
TITLE: Darkness
ReplyDeletePROMPT: Dark. Are you afraid of the dark? Let the fear of whatever may lurk in the absence of light, real or imagined, spark your creativity.
LINK: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/37132
Hi Ada, this was really interesting to read and I like how you took a bit of a different approach to it. You seemed to talk about it in two opposite ways which I liked because it's like telling both sides of a story. In the very first section you transition from the dark being scary which might be most people's opinions to liking the dark which is what I think is more your opinion. "It can be scary, it can be mysterious, it can even be inviting in a strange way." this is the line where you talked about the dark in both ways and started to put in your idea of the dark. At the end I liked how you talked about that the dark made it so that you couldn't see what was there but that it was comforting for you to not know. This kind of reminded me of the saying "ignorance is bliss".
DeleteI thought that you did a really good job on this. I thought that at first you would take a more story like approach, but I think that this was able to convey what you wanted extremely well. I think that the 3rd section of your piece was my favorite. I agree that darkness can hide almost anything. It was interesting how you mentioned that the darkness could be subjective. How the darkness could be different for each person who was experiencing it. Although I personally don't find too much comfort in the dark, I agree that some people might, and that it may help to avoid distractions.
DeleteTITLE: The View
ReplyDeletePROMPT: Seasonal. The setting of any piece of writing can have a major impact on its overall tone. Choose a seasonal location that invokes the general mood of fall or winter, such as a pumpkin patch or skating pond. In this piece, include details such as weather, hours of daylight, holidays that help describe the seasonal setting, etc.
LINK: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/37139
Hi Nolan! I really enjoyed reading your piece. I thought it was really sentimental and nice to read. I thought your connection; "the clouds fluffy and small, giving way to the brilliant blue sky, like something out of a painting from Bob Ross himself." was a really interesting comparison and I too agree that it is like something from one of his paintings. I also liked how you talked about the imperfections in the world. I feel as though we always tend to look over what's really happening with the world; like what you said, pollution. I really liked that you brought that up in your piece.
DeleteI think that this is a beautifully written piece, not only because of how descriptive it is, but also because it has a genuine message: just because there is a pretty view in front of you (metaphorical or literal) doesn’t mean you can ignore your problems, nor those of the world around you. I agree that much of what needs to change in this world can’t change because so many have seen “the view” and delude themselves with the idea that our world is perfect. I also like your writing style a lot; you use metaphor very well, and your writing’s tone is a great blend of conversational and explanatory.
DeleteTITLE: NOTHING: DARKNESS
ReplyDeletePROMPT: Are you afraid of the dark? Let the fear of whatever may lurk in the absence of light, real or imagined, spark your creativity
LINK: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/37141
I absolutely loved this piece of writing, especially because I myself am afraid of the dark. I almost responded to this prompt, because I thought it was very interesting and left room for creativity. I liked the way you talked about different people's perceptions of darkness; that it is either nothing, or, "a hideous beast that waits for them to round the corner and ensure their death." I also liked how you went back and forth between the facts that the darkness is either nothing, or that it is uncertain. Your piece of writing also made me think more about the actual fear of the dark, and that "The real problem lurks in the darkness itself."
DeletePersonally, I’m not terribly afraid of the dark, but your description of how it would feel was impeccable, and I could practically see the “hideous beast” that some expect to see leaping out at any moment. I also quite like the “or is it?” at the end, after assurances that there is nothing to fear about the dark, and that “it is just that… Darkness”. I also like the way you spaced your lines in seemingly arbitrary places, sometimes even in the middle of sentences. Somehow, it lends to the already ominous tone of the piece. I also agree that it is amazing how something as natural and inevitable as darkness can instill such fear into so many.
DeleteI really enjoyed your piece. If I am being honest, I do have a fear of the dark. However, it is less of a fear of the dark than a fear of the unknown. I know nothing is really there, but I still think to myself “What can’t I see?” I think this all started when I was younger and I was really into “creepypastas,” fictional stories about creatures or anomalies made to scare the reader. I got really into them, while at the same time, I was naïve and they made me super paranoid about their possible existence in the real world. I really enjoyed the way you ended your piece. It added a sense of thrill and peaks the reader’s interest.
DeleteTITLE: Rain Like Tears
ReplyDeletePROMPT/CHALLENGE: Weather. Weather as a topic of small talk or awkward conversation is a well-known cliché. Incorporate weather into the dialogue of two or more characters in a way that signifies it as the supremely serious subject driving the interaction. Alternatively, write a poem about weather in a grave or reverent tone.
LINK to YWP SITE: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/3971