Publish polished student writing inspired by this contest-winning photo here!

[Publishing Voice]

Each year, the WritingFix website sponsors a Digital Photo Contest for students and teachers nationwide.  The goal is for students to take pictures that would inspire their classmates to want to write the "story behind a picture."

 

Click here to access WritingFix's Digital Photo Resource Page! 

 

At right, you see the student-winning digital photograph from our 2009 contest.  It was taken by elementary student Austin Miller.

 

If you use this photo in class as a writing prompt, and then have a student like what they're writing so much that they take their writing through the writing process, we want to see their published stories posted here!

 

No rough drafts please.  We're looking for polished writing inspired by this photograph!  Final drafts of stories can be pasted or attached in the "Reply to This" box below.

 

Very Important:  Teachers, please only share your students' first name and grade level with us when you post the writing on their behalf.  Do not post last names or school names, or the posts will be deleted.

 

Twenty-five Teachers every semester will win a free classroom resource!  Each semester, we choose 25 new students to publish at our online lessons directly at the world-famous WritingFix website. To have your students' writing considered, it can be posted below in the box underneath  this posting.  In November and May, we will select the 25 students whose writing impressed us the most, and if your student(s) is selected, you will be asked to choose from any of the NNWP Print Publications (http://www.unr.edu/educ/nnwp/publications.html) for us to send to your classroom.

 

Help us celebrate your writers.

 

--Corbett Harrison, WritingFix Webmaster

[Julie Reinhardt]

Flamingos

By Beth W. – 4^th Grade

Flamingos live by water and rocks,

They always stay together in flocks.

Their feathers are very light pink,

And are they birds or not you always think.

Standing on one leg very tall,

They never ever seem to fall.

[Catherine Jones]

4th graders stories

[Catherine Jones]

Fourth grader's story

[Michelle Maher]

The Flamingo Tribe

By Kayla, a 5^th grade writer

 

Hello everybody. I live in Argentina. I am a pink bird known as the flamingo. When I was little my parents died and I was alone. I get very lonely and the only thing that is protecting me from the outside world is my heart. I have not yet found more of my species.

 

I hope to find friends on my long journey to Brazil in search of more flamingos. I left the next morning. It was a hot day and I was dying of thirst. Finally, I found a stream and took a giant gulp of water. It really quenched my thirst. Then something started to come at me from under the water. When all of a sudden, pop!

 

Out hopped a frog. He said,  “Hello miss. How are you today?” I said that I was doing fine although it was awfully hot that day. I told him about my parents, how they had died and the struggles I have been facing since then. He actually listened to me unlike the ladybugs and the butterflies back home. He understood me. He said I must get lonely and I said that I do basically all the time. He said that he would love to accompany me on my long journey. I said that would be wonderful. He said that his name was Smooth. Then he asked me what my name was. I said I never really had a real name because my parents died before they even had a chance to name me. Smooth said that he would call me Flow, short for Florien. I liked that name. It was getting late so we decided to call it a night. We set up camp by an old oak tree. We laid down and we talked for about ten minutes before we fell into a deep sleep.

 

 In the morning I woke up feeling very hot and sweaty so I decided to take a cool dip in the pond behind the oak tree. When Smooth awoke he felt very hot and sweaty too so he decided to join me. After about an hour of swimming we set off again.

 

In the late afternoon we took our first step in Brazil.  It was beautiful. We kept walking and after about 15 minutes we stopped to take a break. We were both talking to each other when all of a sudden we heard a giant splash. It came from behind a few trees. Smooth and I got up and walked around the trees, the sun shining bright. I could not believe my eyes. I finally had found my flamingo tribe. The long trip that I had once took taught me more then to never give up. It taught me how to have courage, meet new friends, face my fears, and to trust in the one thing that got me to this very spot…to trust in myself.

[Amy Peterson]

Flamingo Land
I was riding on a boat.
“I was having a blast.” I quote.
All I saw was a blob of pink.
It all went past me before I could blink.
I told my dad to go back there.
When we stopped I took a stare.
There was a little baby flamingo standing on one leg.
I wanted to stay for a while, but I had to beg.
Minutes and minutes past,
But it was so fun watching them, it was going by fast.
Thirty minutes later and it was time to go.
In “Flamingo Land” all the flamingos put on a wonderful show.

Savannah 5th

[Nancy Schneider]

Am I Trapped or am I Free?

 

 

My name is Spiderbird. I live with a flock of flamingos at the Everglades Zoo. Almost everyone around me are relatives, take Poppybird for example; she just became my cousin after earning her Bird name. We just got a new arrival, Honeychick .She still has her down, and I’ve been assigned to feed her. If you don’t know how we feed our young I’m not gonna tell you. It’s just too nasty. Ewwww!!!! She just spit a bunch of shrimp at me that I had just fed her! Almost all the chicks’ have to eat regurgitated food.

 

 I want to see the wild.  I’m supposed to be on a preserve. My zoo is for injured animals, I have a chipped beak.  It’s much better now, and the “no-feathers” (people) should be letting me go back to the preserve. I often fly over the top. It feels so good to be free! I fly down to the flamingo part of the preserve. I dive down and choose a leaf bunk. A leaf bunk is just a bunch of leaves smushed together. The picture you see is the preserve. I’m on the middle rock in the middle of it. My real mother and father are standing beside me. My mother is Sorrelbird and my father is Snowbird. My father is called that because my some reason his feathers are white. It’s kinda weird.

 

My sister died soon after I came back. Our flock was attacked by a strange bird. It had black wings, a gray body, and a ferocious beak. She died an honorable death, by driving the bird away. The Old Ones dragged her away to be buried. I started crying the last time I saw her was when she had just hatched. I don’t even know her name. She was the one who chipped my beak when she hatched. But I’m going to call her Fluffyfeather, for the down she wore when she hatched. I’m sorry but I can’t talk about this anymore. It’s just too sad.

 

I’m going back to the zoo. But I don’t want to feed a chick. I’m staying here. No! That bird is coming back…..wait. That bird’s metal. Someone’s going to be carried away back to the zoo. I remember that bird from when it took me away. Might as well give up and just stand here until it takes me, because I know it’s coming for me.

 

I guess I forgot how fast chicks grow, because Honeychick is now Honeyfeather.  I wish the “no-feathers” had taken a picture of the zoo. It looks really artificial. It has blue and white rocks, blue [literally] water, plastic plants, and foam rocks. It’s pretty bad. But it feels like home, and I’m staying here. Maybe I might even settle down and have a couple of chicks with a mate. Maybe Ivybird. She’s a beautiful flamingo with green eyes and unnaturally long feathers……

 

2 MONTHS LATER

Ivybird is dead. My chicks Seachick and Hazelchick have been taken to the preserve. I am very sick. Life has turned gray. I hope that my chicks are doing what runs in their blood. My time has come. I am dying right now as you are reading this….

 

By: Spiderbird (Selia)

 

 

[this story was inspired by my life before my hamster died]

[Nancy Schneider]

A Flamingo Dream

 

 

 

Pink   flamingoes stare at me

Oh I wish they could dance so gracefully

Oh I wonder what the world would be

If we were all pink flamingoes.

 

In our salmon and pearlish pink feathers

And long narrow legs

Then I hear my mother’s voice

She says it’s time to get up

To go to school now

 

I know it was just a dream

 a dream waiting to come true

For all the little girls

                                                                                                                                                                          

By The Dreamer (Sophia)

[Nancy Schneider]

Flamingos

 

Flamingos!

Flamingos!

They’re everywhere.

 

Up upon land

 in the water.

 

Their feathers are pink,

their legs are thin,

 their neck is shaped

 like a crowbar.

 

 They stand on one leg,

how amazing is that.

Their beaks are bent,

 They’re quite large birds,

 

they look like a flames

when they fly away,

in fact flamingo means flame

 in Latin.

 

 Flamingos!

Flamingos!

They’re everywhere.

 

I wish to have one of my own.

 

 

By: Collin

[Lauren Sansone]

The  Beautiful   Flamingos   

By: Ahsan   

Grade 3

Look  how  

Pink

The Flamingos

Legs are

Look

At the

Green  trees

 Listen to

The chirping

Of the

Birds  in

The sky

 

[Lauren Sansone]

The Flamingo Island

By: Lynsey, Grade 3

Once upon a time I went to a zoo.I saw flamingos.They were standing on beautiful,tan,warm sand.They were so pink they looked like pink lillys. The land is so pretty it looked like a tropical island.The water is so clear you can see fish in it.The sun is so warm  I want to lay in it.The legs of the flamingos are so skinny they look like toothpicks.Their island is so pretty it looks like a jungle.The trees are as green as grass and sway swiftly in the breeze.

[Ashley Crossno]

How Far Can I Fly?, A modern folktale about why flamingos are pink, 5th grade

[Ashley Crossno]

Escape, 5th Grade

Land of Flamingos, 5th Grade