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This author brings excitement to her story when she paints a picture of her friend sprawled like a spider.

This personal narrative by eighth-grader Alicia presents an engaging voice. Read the essay and notice how Alicia’s personality comes through; she obviously cares about her subject. Her use of details gives the reader a clear picture of the characters and environment in this account of Alicia’s first encounter with racism.

This story is well organized, and the sentences flow smoothly. There are lots of details and excellent word choices.

This report is timely, revealing, and engaging; it flows smoothly with effective transitions between paragraphs. The author has clearly gained a thorough understanding of the subject.

In this model, a dialogue develops between a number of students and their advisor for the school newspaper. Notice how the dialogue takes on a lighthearted tone; it was based on actual conversation. As you begin to write your own dialogue, model it after conversations you have heard. This will help you create dialogue that sounds natural and reveals the personalities of your characters.

Hannah’s seventh-grade science class tried an experiment involving an egg, vinegar, corn syrup, and water. Her observations include not only the outcomes of the different steps in the procedure, but also her personal reactions to the experiment.

Ninth-grader Samantha’s assignment for this essay was to write a series of vignettes, loosely modeled on the novel The House on Mango Street, about her own house, neighborhood, family, and friends.

This is a fun story with lots of details.