US Common Core ELA

Art

Poetry·Sim Ling Thee, age 13 — A spilled mug of milk becomes a meditation on how accidents and disasters might transform into art when viewed from a different perspective.

Poetry·Summer Loh, age 8 — A girl captures a single domestic moment: her brother toddling, father playing guitar, mother cooking, while she types and notices summer trees blooming outside.

Poetry·William Chui, age 13 — A boy discovers beauty in his seemingly routine summer day, noticing small details — a flickering light, his dog's warm belly, new plants in the backyard.

Personal Narrative·Lara Fraenkel, age 11 — A girl traces her evolving understanding of clouds from childhood fantasies of cotton candy and fairies to learning the water cycle in school, finding wonder in scientific truth.

Poetry·Soheon Rhee, age 12 — A meditation on dishwashing becomes a portal to memory, neighborhood sounds, and the passage of time in a Korean household abroad.

Poetry·Summer Loh, age 8 — Through a fogged window, a child observes city life: a girl with her dog, a street musician, an old couple, and a flower growing through concrete cracks.

Personal Narrative·Violet Lou, age 10 — A kindergartener watches classmates play piano until her mother finally asks if she wants to learn, leading to the arrival of her own piano.

Poetry·Benjamin Ding, age 9 — Thirteen playful poems explore opposites, paradoxes, wordplay, and environmental concerns through a child's inventive lens, ending with a critique of materialism versus nature.

Poetry·Parwana Amiri, age 16 — A refugee teen's defiant catalog of what takes courage — building schools, welcoming the homeless, staying human — versus what's easy: destroying, hurting, closing your eyes.

Poetry·Summer Loh, age 8 — A child observes a yellow woodpecker pecking at a tree, wonders about its purpose, then watches it glide away like a paper airplane.