Ups and Downs, By Nate, Under 18 Category

Faces shine

                   As they find

                               What is in store for them at the beach.

I love to walk on the shore,

                            it changes all the time,

                                                Just

                                                             Like

                                                                           Me.

1. For this year’s contest, participants should write a poem based on nature or the natural world.
2. Participants must reside within the Driftwood Public Library’s Service Area.
3. All entries must have a cover paged marked with Title, Name, Address, Phone Number and Age (over or under 18)
4. All Entries must be received by April 10th.

Winners will be selected by library staff. Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

1. Adherence to Theme
2. Quality of Writing
3. Originality of Expression.

Nate won First Place for the Under 18 – and received a Where the Sidewalk Ends 30th Anniversary Special Edition Book along with a CD of the 25th Anniversary Edition, which is a Grammy Winning Classically Digitally Remastered CD with bonus tracks. Nate has already listened to the whole thing. I would like to thank the Driftwood Public Library for encouraging the boys to enter! Jon entered a poem as well with a full color drawing. I’d also like to share with you the great companies I have worked with this year with The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew –

• Time 4 Writing – This 8 week course helped us kick the daily writing and editing into full gear this summer, as a daily small increment “doable” task. Instead of once the in a while, we really should be writing, way we were doing it. It helped with accountability for daily practice, checking in with an online teacher.
• The Write Foundation – I really REALLY like this program. It also encourages daily practice – but it also makes excellence attainable. They also have Grading Help and Tutors available and I have used their customer service email and have received prompt cheerful helpful answers to any question. Come to think of it, I might owe them $15.00 by now. They helped us step by step bring up the level of writing, using the thesaurus to expand vocabulary – incorporate all types of writing – report – creative – poetry – etc. It was through this program that Nate practiced writing poems in a design playing with the placement of words or the letters in a word to help describe what you are writing.

I highly recommend The Write Foundation – the struggles we had with finding a daily writing course was resolved with their product. And – it has been used and written for Homeschool Co-op Classes – so for those of you teaching writing – this would be a great tool!! But back to my joy! This is the second year Nate has won the Poetry Contest and I couldn’t be more thrilled that my late to learn, relaxed learning son enjoys writing and singing and creating stories! Thank you every one on Facebook that wished him well!