STUDENT WRITING INSPIRES
Age 13 and Published
Recently a New York City public school teacher, Vanessa Snowden, wrote to Arne Duncan, "If you give teachers the space we need to cultivate a context for the standards that speak to students, you will see all the ways in which we can create success." As evidence, she sent him a book, the product created when Snowden gave her students the room "to be people." The results are powerful: Halfway to Infinity is an anthology crafted and published entirely by students, from cover to contents, and its 305 pages exhibit a compelling array of literary forays. Each entry offers insight into the complexity and depth of the human experience from the remarkably sophisticated perspective of eighth graders. A few of our favorites (among the many) include "Easy and Completely Accurate Stereotyping: Bigotry for Simpletons"; "A Synopsis of the Modern World in Under Two Hundred Words"; "#thatawkwardmoment When You Can Relate to a Dog"; and "Our Nature Shoved in a Poem."
