Destiny West, a fifth-grade student at McNair Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District, wrote a poem published in the 2011 Young Writers of America student anthology.
The annual Young Writers of America poetry contest is open to students who are enrolled in grades three through six. Poems must be written on one of the following themes – “The World as I See It” or “What My Family Means to Me.” West chose the theme “The World as I See It.” Each letter in the title doubled as the first letter of each sentence in the poem.
“There are a lot of things in the world that are bad, and if people read the poem, they will learn how to take care of the world,” said West.
“People will feel changed and want to make changes – such as not littering and picking up trash instead and not killing animals.”
The world can be filled with
Harmful and dangerous things because people are harming the
Environment.
We can all help the environment by turning
Off things we aren’t using like
Radios, televisions, etc. We should all
Learn to recycle paper and plastic – less saying and more
Doing
Animals are being harmed. We can
Save them by saving our environment.
It will be easy to
Save the
Environment and
Ecosystem
If we do 1, 2, 3 we can save a
Tree or more.”
“Destiny is a bright student who is always organized, prepared, and works hard in all areas,” said her teacher, Amy Crews.
“She is a great role model in the class and she always puts her best efforts into the work she does. I helped her mail it in and we made a copy of her original work for her to keep,” continued Crews. “I was extremely excited to get the letter announcing that her poem was one chosen to be published. I think she earned the award and I couldn’t be more proud of her.”
Now West is working on writing and illustrating her own novel, The Sister Search.
“It’s about two girls who are not from here who are split up and they try to find each other. Her little sister cries because they are separated,” West explained.
She said two classmates inspired her to write the story, Halima Motan and her younger sister, Manar, who are new to McNair. They come from Yemen, a nation on the Arabian Peninsula.
In 2008, Young Writers of America was established by a group of teachers for the sole purpose of providing students with the incredible opportunity of having their work published. In addition, Young Writers of America proudly donates all additional proceeds to disadvantaged youth programs across the nation.
Poems are reviewed by a panel of experienced public school teachers. Entries are judged based on creativity, artistic quality, artistic expression and originality. Approximately 20 percent of entries are published in the anthology.
