US Common Core ELA
— Swallows move through a day from dawn to twilight, their appearance transforming with the changing light from silver firs to moonlit wings.
— A meditation on weightlessness and tranquility builds through philosophical comparisons until the speaker climbs a mountain to grasp the sun and fall.
— A girl with a fear of heights jumps off a cliff at her cousins' urging, nearly drowns in panic underwater, then immediately agrees to do it again for a video.
— A summer evening unfolds through sensory details — soft light, rushing water, owl calls, and moonlight stretching across quiet land.
— A young swimmer discovers the underwater world of a Bermuda coral reef, encountering a parrotfish that transforms her understanding of the ocean.
— A tree alone in a honeysuckle field becomes a meditation on loneliness and loss, its reaching branches mirroring human grief.
— A young poet observes rivers, leaves, clouds, and birds, concluding with the hope that nature returns their love.
— A playful, energetic poem captures the exhausting joy of endless banter, with words crashing together like the conversation itself until silence finally arrives.
— A young writer explores the complexity of emotions, from broken courage to unnamed feelings, concluding that our thoughts and experiences belong to us forever.
— A young writer explores consciousness, emotions, and human existence through a stream-of-consciousness meditation on the brain's power to liberate us through thought and speech.