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Notice how the action and tension climbs.

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The old man bowed his shaggy head, his shady hat covering his forehead and leaving his eyes in shadow. In his gnarled hands he held a birdcage and a leather case. His uneven teeth were yellowed like faded paint, and several were missing

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5 senses! Touch, Sight (light, color), Smell, Taste, and Sound

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You might start your story thinking about a mistake, a new beginning, or having a friend re-appear in your life.  Then think about a character or place. List ideas for what the character wants and why.  Describe this character.

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fictional
Character: girl who is resurrected
Wants: to learn about her past
Obstacles: nobody remembers her

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kitty cats owners get her kittens instead

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Chase shizaldom a random person who accidentally found himself a victim of serial killer Kim donner
Wants:to know why serial killer Kim donner is targeting him and wants to not be in this murder case.
Obstacles:police and kim donner

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Kitty Cat, wants a kitten but is spayed.

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Rain showering on my body loud thunder frightning me I run every where here and there any sound would give a chill to my spine I wait and I wait then i hear a sound i turn to my back and…

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I am running late to school I knew I shouldn’t have stayed up late playing video games

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Short story elements: Brainstorm your story! 

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Short story elements: Brainstorm your story! 

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1. Setting
2. Character
3. Plot
4. theme
5. point of view

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May 2022: The Third Annual Last House Writing Contest featuring the work of emerging writers

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May 2022: The Third Annual Last House Writing Contest featuring the work of emerging writers

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Deadline: Deadline for submission of entries: May 31, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. PST

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April 2022: NextGen Edu Poetry Contest (GK-12)

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April 2022: NextGen Edu Poetry Contest (GK-12)

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I find a orange and black bug ,
on the hiking trail.
It didn't bite me,
but scrambled away.
I knew it was ,
a cow killer,
because it,
was orange and black.
I knew to stay away from it,
because someone in a video,
got stung my one.

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Heat waves
Ice cream shops
Beaches
That is summer

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The sky is clear today,
My belly is full...
Sun shines, a glare of light,
Outside, I look at the pavement,
Waves of heat, wobbling this way and that,
Emanating from the asphalt.
Better stay inside,
I say,
Perhaps just save the outside times
For tomorrow,
And today, I relax.

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The leaves wave in the slight summer breeze,
Warm and comforting and inviting,
I continue reading, cup of lemonade in hand.

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The summer heat makes
of subway tunnels the worst
of hot punishments.

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it is Autumn
leaves are no longer green
they fall down
and kiss the earths moist
foggy ground

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haiku is a short poem
but it gives a
great impact in the world

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Frigid snowflakes fall on us
when snowball battles happen
they tell us that Winter is here

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skys covered with blooming stars
poppies blooming with love
villages blooming with happiness

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The leaves change color
We collect the orange leaves
We rake up the leaves

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You, look at yourself,
A false mirror, that it is,
But know that you're true.

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The snow falls on us
Building a snowman is fun
Winter is now here

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Captured from the world,
Born from the brush,
Each conciousness has art.

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On a village night
that was with fright
stars bloomed all over the sky
and created love oh so high

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The silver, frigid wind
Setting the golden leaves free
Like wishes and dreams

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spring a lovely season
when fresh red strawberries are ripe
when theres moist air

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March 2022: Sarah Mook Poetry Contest (GK-12)

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March 2022: Sarah Mook Poetry Contest (GK-12)

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Drizzling rainfall,
the earthy smell of moist air,
whoosh! There goes the wind.

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Use a photo. It can be one that you took yesterday, a new one, or one from the internet.

Begin writing your haiku. Each word is important. You only get 17 syllables.

Remember the pattern:

5 syllables

7 syllables

5 syllables

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More images...National geographic wildlife photo contest winners

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More images...National geographic wildlife photo contest winners

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Deep underwater, the camera's flash captures an explosion of new life. Two groupers, just mated, exit a cloud of eggs and sperm in the Fakarava Atoll, part of French Polynesia. The mating is so rare and so fleeting that it happens only once a year, for about 30 minutes, around the full moon in July. Photographer Laurent Ballesta spent 3,000 hours trying to capture it.

For his photograph of this extraordinary phenomenon, called "Creation," Ballesta, a frequent National Geographic photographer, has won the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year, awarded today by London's Natural History Museum, which organizes the competition annually and displays an exhibit of the winners.

The photograph, called "Creation," captures "a magical moment," said Roz Kidman Cox, chair of the judging panel, in a press release. "It is surprising, energetic, and intriguing, and has an otherworldly beauty."

Museum director Doug Gurr called the photograph "a compelling reminder of what we stand to lose if we do not address humanity's impact on our planet."

The Fakarava Atoll, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve protected from commercial activities, is home to several threatened and endangered species. Here, the marbled grouper, which is threatened due to large-scale fishing, is safe-from humans at least. During grouper mating season, hundreds of gray reef sharks come out at night to feed on the nearly two-foot-long fish, whose conservation status is unknown, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which evaluates the global conservation status of species.

Aside from knowing that the mating would happen around the full moon in June or July, Ballesta had no way to predict the timing, which meant that he had to maximize his time underwater. In 2014, he created a dive protocol-the first of its kind- that would allow him to spend a full 24 hours 65 feet under the ocean while limiting the amount of time it takes to decompress. The feat required careful calibration to come up with the exact right mix of gases in his oxygen tank, a dedicated dive team, and a large degree of mental fortitude, he says.

His carefully planned strategy worked. While swimming among thousands of marbled grouper and hundreds of gray reef sharks without the perceived protection of a shark cage or a metal shark suit, "it took time to develop the intuition that we would not get bitten," Ballesta told National Geographic in 2018. "We had to feel confident enough that when they bump up against us, so hard that sometimes we have bruises, we have to keep calm. They are considering us as obstacles, not prey." (See more of Ballesta's work to document this surreal phenomenon in National Geographic

The competition, which is in its 57th year, awards 19 categories of wildlife photography, including behavior, photojournalism, and portraiture. This year, the competition received 50,000 entries from photographers around the world. Judges looked for innovation, narrative, and technical skill. (See last year's winners here.)

Ten-year-old Vidyun R. Hebbar of India won Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year, the competition's other top distinction, for his up-close photograph of a tent spider, bathed in the lights and rainbow colors of a passing rickshaw.

Two other frequent National Geographic photographers were also honored. Jennifer Hayes won the "Oceans: Bigger Picture" category for her image of harp seals and their newborn pups on fractured Arctic ice. The "bigger picture" categories, new this year, honors photography that shines a light on crucial ecosystems, such as the Arctic's shrinking sea ice, which harp seals rely on to breed. It took Hayes hours of searching by helicopter to find the winning scene, which she describes as "a pulse of life that took your breath away."

Brent Stirton won the photojournalism story category for his work to document chimpanzees and their caregivers at Lwiro Primate Rehabilitation Center, in South Africa, which rescues and rehabilitates primates orphaned by poaching. The babies are often sold, sometimes for pets. "As a result," Stirton writes on Instagram, "many of these chimps have lived lives of isolation, suffering, and cruelty." At Lwiro, more than a hundred young chimps are given one-on-one care to ease their psychological and physical trauma. (See the full National Geographic

"These dedicated caregivers raise the baby chimps like their own children," Stirton writes.

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See the winning images from Wildlife Photographer of the Year

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Deep underwater, the camera's flash captures an explosion of new life. Two groupers, just mated, exit a cloud of eggs and sperm in the Fakarava Atoll, part of French Polynesia. The mating is so rare and so fleeting that it happens only once a year, for about 30 minutes, around the full moon in July.

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my haiku is to
write a test poem for all
to see how it works.

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Thank you for entering the Sarah Mook Poetry Contest. Despite the closing of many schools due to COVID-19, we still had more than 800 entries and winners from ten different states representing both the east and west coasts, and the middle of the country too! Congratulations to all the poets, and thanks to the teachers, parents, and mentors who support these young writers.

Each winning poet will receive a cash award: First $100, Second $50, and Third $25.

K-2 First Place: " Secret Path " Lillian Carman - Pipersville, PA

K-2 Second Place: " The Green, Green Grass " Willa Miller - Pipersville, PA

K-2 Third Place: " The Four Elements " Gage Lee Gracey - Mill Valley, CA

3-5 First Place: " Hooking a Poem " Jacob Menard - Sarasota, FL

3-5 Second Place: " My Many-Colored Days " Alexis Marie Solano - Seward, NE

3-5 Third Place: " Boxes Are Special " Leah Dainty - Mishawaka, IN

6-8 First Place: " The Virus " Avah Dodson - Lafayette, CA

6-8 Second Place: " Where I'm From " Sara Dominguez - Los Gatos, CA

6-8 Third Place: " Better to Be Alive as a Fly Than a Dead Lion: The Story of Michel Zelon, a Holocaust Survivor " Caleigh Crocker - Windsor, ME

9-12 First Place: " October " Gayatri Rajan - Mason, OH

9-12 Second Place: " Self-Portrait: Breath of Ghosts " Sabrina Guo - Syosset, NY

9-12 Third Place: " Lotus Feet " Joy Chen - Irvine, CA

A note from Final Judge Marie Kane: Congratulations to all those who entered the 2020 Sarah Mook poetry contest! The number of poems entered and their quality belies the difficulty of this Covid-19 school year. I salute you, poets, for staying true to your craft. Distance learning is just that-distant and impractical-as opposed to personal and clear. Yet several hundred of you entered this contest, because, I like to think, poetry matters. This certainly speaks to the poetic talent of all of these poets! I was pleased to find that the final ten poems in each age group made my choice of the top three challenging. The variety of topics, styles, clarity, agility with words, specific images, resonant detail, and use of original poetic devices made my job difficult-and I thank you, poets, for that. This last judging should be difficult. I should struggle with these entries to find the winners. I should have to read these poems over and over-and read them out loud over and over- because doing so reveals the winners in each age group. Congratulations!

The Kindergarten Award, sponsored by Sarah's kindergarten teacher Mrs. Olwen Jarvis, is a tie this year. Each poet will receive a cash award of $75 for the purchase of books for their libraries.

" Snow and Summer" Caecia Fernaid - Poultney, VT

" Sharptooth" Noah Tompke - Cashmere, WA.

Mrs. Jarvis encourages these two young poets to "draw pictures" to go with their poems, and also to "continue writing" -- good advice, especially in these difficult times, for poets of all ages.

Thank you also for your donations! A contribution of $363 was made in Sarah's name to Save the Children Fund, which provides services to struggling children throughout the world.

Award letters will be mailed soon to the winning poets. Winning poems will be published on the website, www.SarahMookPoetryContest.com in a few weeks. Check the website later this summer. Thank you for honoring Sarah and her gift of poetry. Take care and have a fun summer!

Sincerely,

David Mook and Family

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Sarah Mook Poetry Contest Results, 2020 Thank you for entering the Sarah Mook Poetry Contest. Despite the closing of many schools due to COVID-19, we still had more than 800 entries and winners from ten different states representing both the east and west

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A virus is dangerous I know.
But people still die to them though;
I want invent a vaccine vaccine here.
I could use some snow.
I know this is queer.
With a person near.
People are drinking the water in the lake.
This is the time I will save people's lives this year.
I will make this thing by giving it a shake.
But I make a mistake.
Then I hear a sweep.
A pattern shape falls on my head. It is a snowflake.
Then the vaccine is done. It makes a sound that is deep.
Then I hear someone called , but I have a vaccine to keep.
But know I have to go to sleep
But know I have to go to sleep

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Your dreams, your goals, wishes, desires.

I follow you like a worry,

change your actions like a habit.

You cannot escape me until you have

fulfilled me, or given me up.

You will know me, and think of me,

Unlike influence of unconscious

You want me to happen.

I can be different things, but I am

Always things you want.

I have changed the world,

I have changed peoples lives,

Great people have used me,

Failures have fallen for me,

I am Ambition.

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Ambitions of a Bird

The birds learn to fly

The cats learn to leap

They have one thing in common

They never go to the same tree

The times that they do

The bird never pulls through

And it always gets rough

But the cats always the most tough

Except  for the bird that can

He makes the cats wish they had ran

But the cats never can

Until they came up with a plan

The cats came back

There plan would get them back on tack

All the cats who were black

To the ones whose owners ran on a track

Came up with a plan that would get them back on track

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Company Oh company oh how I want to make you, it will take a thousand years to make you.
My dreams are on you my sweet company oh how I want to make you.
I think company’s are the greatest idea in the whole wide world.
They help in many different ways oh that’s why I want to make you!
Oh company how I want to make you…
oh company oh company I WILL catch you….

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Would you take a journey out there?
A journey to the edge of one world to another?
To a strange place, twisted with the unnatural,
Where the rippling canvas
Comes to life with squirming words,
And the paint is splashed down,
Dribbling down the blank page,
In rivulets of ink, ideas
Turned into reality.
Where primordial beings rise
From the ocean of endless thought,
Which swirls and mixes constantly,
Spitting out many-faceted jewels,
Known as characters.
And when this ocean finally leaks dry,
Drop by drop,
It has crystallized into a wondrous, beautiful object,
And your seemingly endless trip is over.
So would you take the challenge?
I would, and I'm still hoping to create,
Create something truly
out there.

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spinning wheel for poetry discussion.PNG

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Three Boys With Jugs of Molasses and Secret Ambitions (U.S. National Park Service)

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From his collection of stories for children, titled “Rootabaga Stories”

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Writing Prompt: What does ambition mean to you? Make a list of 10 words related to "ambition" that come to your mind. 

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Writing Prompt: What does ambition mean to you? Make a list of 10 words related to "ambition" that come to your mind. 

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Feb 2022: Carl Sandburg Student Poetry Contest (Grades 3-12) 

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Feb 2022: Carl Sandburg Student Poetry Contest (Grades 3-12) 

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Carl Sandburg Student Poetry Contest - Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

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The contest is announced in December of each year with entries due late February. The contest encourages young students to write poetry based on a theme which changes each year. Educators are invited to submit original poems written by their students. Students in grades 3-12 are guided only by an annual theme.

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2021 Winning poems: Carl Sandburg Student Poetry Contest  

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2021 Winning poems: Carl Sandburg Student Poetry Contest  

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See all winning poems: https://www.nps.gov/carl/learn/news/2021-pc-winners.htm

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i wish i could

carry myself to
the calm breeze of the
blooming trees
and the chirping birds
of the mountains
barely visible behind
the rows of houses.

join
The carefree giggles
of children
muffled through their masks
as they learn to ride
a bike
down the block.

lose myself in
the endless silence
of the highway
across the street.

this social isolation,
the 6-ft mandatory distance
away from everything,
leaves me merely
yearning for
my physical presence
at the mountains,
down the block,
across the street.

yet a part of me
wants the decreased ambience
from the pandemic
to continue forever,

so i can
leave my windows
open to days like
this summer afternoon,
to let the world
drift through the window screen,
and fill my room
with joy at a distance.
Winter Waters
Snow piles in my backyard
like waters rising in the Arctic.
Darkness waves through me. I swallow

my bitterness before the cold
swallows me. Clumps of snow
like icebergs break

under my feet, and I think about Mother
polar bears plunging into Arctic waters,
gone: another white-ice body,

hoIding together the underworlds.
As I clear the driveway, I feel the weight of a body
on my shovel. Some of the world

is too much
to keep afloat, I tell myself.
My boots pierce shapes

like Arctic Skate fish into the snow,
and over time the fish
are graved into dirt.

Soon Mother comes home,
her car flattening snow against pavement
like the sweat trailing my skin.

By the end
of my chores, winter has sorrowed
my socks. Before I go back inside,

I listen
to the wind, whispers
like finger glass fading:

this is the way
winter moves.

Vibrations Through the Earth

Do you feel that?
Kūng, kūng
Seasons play their rhythm,
Kūng, kūng

Vibrate through the earth,
Hear it in your toes,
The heartbeat of the ground,
Kūng, kūng

Rhythmic as the boom
Of thunder in a summer storm,
Crisp and smooth, a rainmaker,
Shhhhhh as the earth listens,
Boom, the sky an accent.
The slam of wooden shutters open-shut,
Tossed by gusts of humid air.

Beat like wings of Canada geese,
Black-brown-white lift-off,
The development, the in between,
The point between this and that,
Hhp, the inhale, the breath before the release, waiting.
The time to mark a comma on your paper,

Delicate as steel brushes,
Winter with its leafless twigs and
A twangy hiss, clatter,
Echoed in rattling radiators,
Quiet as the earth takes its rest
But soon the thumps like the snowfall off a branch,
The thud of boots in the snow,
The plop of slush as it is kicked to the side;
Attempt to rouse her again.

The spring is the crescendo an accelerando, the
opposite of a sportando.
The chorus, if you will.
Increasing slowly, and then all at once,
An explosion made up of
The humming melody of the birds chirping
And the silent song of the rebirth of the trees.
The music nearly drowns out the whispered
assurance that there will be a return,
That the cycle will bring another heart to feel the
Thump, thump
Rhythm of the earth.

I Will Follow

Summer runs away again as I try to pocket the sky,
flaking with gold sediment, light so vivid, it bruises

moaning planks on the porch. The heat baptizes
alyssum-murmuring meadows, a canopy painted

into sunlight's plafond. I weave through wind-whistled
thickets, wishing to blanket ourselves within the fragile folds

of hibiscuses. I pursue summer like a lorn lover, and when
shadows splinter under my bare feet, I refuse to let

time rust me like a cypress inscribed with copper. I allow
bowing branches to scrape my cheeks, arms, thighs when I roam,

already abraded by autumn's sting. Magpies nestle in their
omen-woven hammocks, their songs preluding eulogies, death blurred

by clockwork cycles. The stilling of bitter breezes coils me in burdened
jackets and premature scarves, and before I have a chance to catch up,

my snowy feet melt to the nocturne of winter's tongue. My fingers
tremble in a terrified whisper by the sagging carcass of licaria and

laurels, the gentle hum of what I once knew is gone. And yet, when
the fanged moon returns to rest, I wake up with my frost-worn mouth

hungry for breath. I traverse across the white belly of groves, graze my
hand over the frozen moors of my fear. My stagnation hangs in the air,

a noose nested beneath my chin, a grief to shelter the ticking of cicadas.
Wintered snowdrops sacrifice soil for cradles of vitality. Locust trees

crate their existence in the arching necks of their bloom. I unbraid
myself from echoes, from lullabies no longer lulled. Birdsong

welcomes my tentative footsteps, and I see an afterimage of time's
ripples. And when summer, a fleeting but sage lover, takes my hand again,

I yearn to run with her.

Stuck in Some Time

Watermelon dribbling juice on
long days of soft haze and flowers
perfume the air. and sea who wave in and out

Sit by me
on this tree that never moves only sways
I come back after the leaves have dipped through paints
of green, yellow, red, brown, and green again
to drink familiar scents and find different patterns on bark
that I thought was once a simple solid coat of sienna

Watermelon dribbled juice on
kids running till the sun was caught
till its rays were shared. for a small moment
where we all were the kings and queens of
light quickly fading into darkness

The ocean receding holds reflections of faces
whose smiles no longer match mine
like they did many summers ago.

The birds have flown south with winter on their tails
yet watermelon dribbles juice on
a memory too sweet to forget.
too precious to relive

So sit by me near the water
and watch it draw close and draw back
never touching our bare toes
Hugging the sand to the ground

Sometime, somewhere, this water will tumble over the line we have drawn
We won't be watching
We wait for the nectar of a fruit
ripe enough to drink without wanting more

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2021 Poetry Contest Winners - Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

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i wish i could carry myself to the calm breeze of the blooming trees and the chirping birds of the mountains barely visible behind the rows of houses. join The carefree giggles of children muffled through their masks as they learn to ride a bike down the block.

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 DFW contest 2021: "I am American because _____and ______."

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 DFW contest 2021: "I am American because _____and ______."

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POLITICSNEWS22 Inspiring Quotes About What It Means to Be an American

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POLITICSNEWS22 Inspiring Quotes About What It Means to Be an American

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I am American because I have freedom to choose my religion, play my sports, and go to school wherever I choose if I apply myself.

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Grades 6-8: How Can I Be a Good American?  (Written essay, 300-400 words)    Grades 9-12: America: Where Do We Go From Here?  (Audio essay, 3-5 minutes)            

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Grades 6-8: How Can I Be a Good American?  (Written essay, 300-400 words)    Grades 9-12: America: Where Do We Go From Here?  (Audio essay, 3-5 minutes)            

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2019-2020 Patriot's Pen First Place Winner Ruby Howe

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Voice of Democracy Rules and Eligibility

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National contest winner 2020-21 "Is This the Country the Founders Envisioned?"

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National contest winner 2020-21 "Is This the Country the Founders Envisioned?"

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2020-2021 National winner

2020-2021 Voice of Democracy First Place Winner Erin Stoeckig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCIwv2tV2go&list=PLS17GMBrjUlYrhM5_vSCl4hHKN23j7uxv&index=2

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2020-2021 Voice of Democracy First Place Winner Erin Stoeckig

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Congratulations DJ for getting the 2nd place for your essay on the local post level! 

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Congratulations DJ for getting the 2nd place for your essay on the local post level! 