TeenSpeak Critiques - Teen Writing

Yes, we CAN... write! TeenSpeak critiquers not only love reading stories; they also love to create them. Here are samples that offer a window into their fertile, fanciful minds.

... Katie turned the key in the back of the gumball machine, where you retrieve the coins that people have paid with, and was once again surprised, as there were a ton of pennies and nickels back there. She pulled a penny out and looked at the date, 1953, the year her dad was born. She placed it in the slot and turned the handle. Out shot an orange gumball.

She stuck it in her mouth and stood up, but there was no longer a bench where she had been sitting, only the machine looking much cleaner, and with more gumballs inside. She looked at where the antique store had been, and screamed. It was now an old-fashioned barbershop.

Katie glanced around and asked a young pregnant women and her husband, “What year is this?” She was shaking horribly.

The young man answered rudely, “Why if you’re not the craziest kid on the street, my name isn’t Franklin John. It’s 1953!”

“Grandpa!” she shouted, then immediately apologized. “Sorry, I just have a grandfather named Frank and you reminded me of him.” The man looked stunned, turned on his heel, and guided his wife into the barbershop.

A boy walked up to her and whispered into her ear, “You know you just offended the best barber in town.” Terrified, Katie spit her gum into a trash bin and closed her eyes. As she slowly opened them, she found herself standing in front of the antique store again.

Katie grabbed the gumball machine, raced to the bank, deposited the money in her savings account, and ran home as fast as she could...

This piece is about one of my trips to China with my family. I was 10 years old, and before the trip, I only knew the side of the world that I was exposed to: the beautiful and quite wealthy...

... As we stepped out of the taxi into the train station in Wuhan, China, I saw a sea of people on the ground. Some were sitting on the cold street; some were lying on torn blankets that were caked with mud. All of them had helpless expressions on their faces as they watched well-to-do tourists walk briskly by them without turning their heads. Many held bags that were contained their small number of belongings while others just clutched their small children. They all had faces splattered with mud and wore clothes that were frayed and torn.

People were afraid to give money to any one of them. Once you tossed a bill to a young, feeble, Chinese woman, ten others would rise and cling to your arms and legs. They’d beg and shout long strings of Chinese phrases. If you gave in at that point, the whole sea of people would be on you.

As I walked past them, holding my parents’ hands, I couldn’t help but look at their forlorn faces filled with rejection. It disturbed me to see them like that, for never in my life had I seen such poverty. They had nothing! They didn’t have much of a future, while I, on the other hand, had my whole life in front of me. Seeing their pitiful world made mine seem like a dream. I knew they’d give anything to have what I did.

Then I wondered about the children. It wasn’t their fault they were born into a family with not a penny to their name. It certainly wasn’t their fault they had to beg and plead for money to make a living. Perhaps their whole life they would see the world as a cruel and brutal place, while I grew up knowing it as a happy and opportunity-filled wonderland.

The nighttime train ride to Beijing was long. As I buried my head under the pillow and desperately tried to sleep, I visualized the poverty-stricken people. I realized the world was not the sheltered haven I had believed it to be all the time. There were people all over the world who were suffering in ways similar to the Chinese people on the streets.

They always say “Ignorance is bliss.” Oh, how I understood that now. As I began to recognize the other half of the world, the other half that consisted of the poor, the underprivileged, my heart ached. I would no longer be that innocent, little ten-year-old girl ever again.

Demetra watched, unable to move for fear, as the terrified Mustang hurtled towards her. The sound of Sandpiper’s pounding hooves, Black Night’s piercing screams, and her father’s hoarse shouts filled her brain. She willed her feet to move, but they would not. She closed her eyes as Sandpiper bore down on her.

When she had first agreed to move to Wyoming, she hadn’t bargained for this. Even as she battered against the iron barriers surrounding Sandpiper’s mind, she sank into a pit of despair. This was it.

Sound began to fade away, and she only stayed connected to Black Night through his tremendous efforts. Sandpiper’s deadly hooves were almost on top of her. Warm, comforting darkness began to wash over her sight...

Twelve-year-old Demetra Smith moped around on the clean, whitewashed front porch of her new home on a sunny Friday. The sun glinted off of her marble-white skin. Her long, straight, raven-wing black hair and midnight-navy blue eyes always gave the impression that she was brooding over something, like now. Why did her parents have to move from New York City, to Lonelytown, U.S.A.?

... She bounced up to her room, shut the door, and pulled the first box to her. It was her riding scrapbook!

“Wow, I forgot about this!” Demetra lovingly flipped through the pages.

Her riding scrapbook held pictures of every horse she had ever ridden, from the little bay Shetland pony she had ridden at the county fair when she was four, to her lesson horse in New York, Barker. Demetra smiled as she gazed at the chestnut gelding. Barker had taught her how to jump fences up to five feet high, and she had competed in her first event on his back. But he had been more than just a lesson horse; he had been a friend. Sometimes, he had even seemed to speak to her...