One of my favorite parts of my job is managing student writing contests. On the Ideabook, we like to highlight extraordinary student writing through our Student Writer Spotlight. See our previous Storyworks winners here, here, and here!
Our February winner is the talented Anouk B, who wrote a fabulous entry to our Macaque contest. Students were asked to write a paragraph including at least three vocabulary words from the Word Power feature about a selfie-taking monkey. Read her entry below!
**********
Naruto smirked at the curious contraption. His friend Kajula grinned at the lens. Kajula and Naruto gathered around the human's printer, where images of monkeys mooning over the portraits of themselves came out of the machine. Each time another selfie or close-up picture popped out, the human who had set it up put on a beautiful beam. Of course, bananas were much better than this piece of junk! Naruto huddled in a corner, watching the overgrown ape work. The man was less hairy, but was certainly smarter. Kajula fluffed her fur, ready for another photoshoot. She snorted when Naruto sniffed at himself like a caveman, mocking her. Kajula smashed a banana over his head. Then, the man did something curious. He walked away from the photos without taking them. Wait, no! He had taken the best photograph: one of Naruto's toothy grin.
**********
We were struck by the sophistication of Anouk's writing and her use of humor and imagery to reimagine the story from the monkey's point of view. Great job, Anouk!
Click here to learn more about Storyworks contests!