Pants on Fire ByVarya Kluev Winner, New York Times LearningNetworkPersonalNarrative Contest Inever kissed theboyI likedbehind schoolyardfencethatone Marchmorning The New York Times Learning Network Student Personal Narrative Essay Contest Rubric Excellent (4) Story: Personal narrative tells a short but memorable story about a life experience — and communicates why it was meaningful to the writer. Language: Personal narrative uses vivid details and images to make the story come alive for the reader The Winners of Our Personal Narrative Essay Contest - The New York Times 1/11/20, AM blogger.com _id=d39a8a0bcaea82f2ab0c9®i_id= Page 1 of 23 The Winners of Our Personal Narrative Essay Contest We asked students to write about a meaningful
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Update: Join our live webinar on Oct. In September, we challenged teenagers to write short, powerful stories about meaningful life experiences for our first-ever personal narrative essay contest. This contest, like every new contest we start, new york times personal narrative contest, was admittedly a bit of an experiment. Well, we received over 8, entries from teenagers from around the world. We got pieces that were moving, funny, introspective and honest. We got a snapshot of teenage life.
Judging a contest like this is, of course, subjective, especially with the range of content and styles of writing students submitted. But we based our criteria on the types of personal narrative essays The New York Times publishes in columns like LivesModern Love and Rites of Passage. The winning essays we selected were, though, and they all had a few things in common that set them apart:.
They had a clear narrative arc with a conflict and a main character who changed in some way. They artfully balanced the action of the story with reflection on what it meant to the writer. They took risks, like including dialogue or playing with punctuation, sentence structure and word choice to develop a strong voice. Congratulations, and thank you to everyone who participated! It was a Saturday.
Whether it was sunny or cloudy, hot or cold, I cannot remember, but I do remember it was a Saturday because the mall was packed with people. Mom is short. It is easy to overlook her in a crowd simply because she is nothing extraordinary to see. I remember I was looking up at the people we passed as we walked — at first apathetically, but then more attentively. Ladies wore five-inch heels that clicked importantly on the floor and bright, elaborate clothing.
Men strode by smelling of sharp cologne, faces clear of wrinkles — wiped away with expensive creams. An uneasy feeling started to settle in my chest. I tried to push it out, but once it new york times personal narrative contest root it refused to be yanked up and tossed away.
It got more unbearable with every second until I could deny it no longer; I was ashamed of my mother. We were in a high-class neighborhood, I knew that. We lived in a small, overpriced apartment building that hung on to the edge of our county that Mom chose to move to because she knew the schools were good.
She wore cheap, ragged clothes with the seams torn, shoes with the soles worn down. Her eyes were tired from working long hours to make ends meet and her hair too gray for her age. My mom is nothing extraordinary, yet at that moment she stood out because she was just so plain. With no other options, I had to scour the other stores in the area for new york times personal narrative contest. Mom was standing in the middle of a high-end store, holding a sweater that looked much too expensive.
It was much too expensive. And I almost agreed, carelessly, thoughtlessly. Then I took a closer look at the small, weary woman with a big smile stretching across her narrow face and a sweater in her hands, happy to be giving me something so nice, and my words died in my throat.
Her clothes were tattered and old because she spent her money buying me new ones. She looked so tired and ragged all the time because she was busy working to provide for me. Suddenly, Mother was beautiful and extraordinarily wonderful in my eyes. I never kissed the boy I liked behind the schoolyard fence that one March morning.
I never had dinner with Katy Perry or lived in Kiev for two months either, but I still told my entire fourth-grade class I did. The words slipped through my teeth effortlessly. With one flick of my tongue, I was, for all anybody knew, twenty-third in line for the throne of Monaco.
I nodded as they whispered under their breath how incredible my fable was. So incredible they bought into it without a second thought. I lied purely for the ecstasy of it. It was narcotic. With my fabrications, I became new york times personal narrative contest captain of the ship, not just a wistful passer-by, breath fogging the pane of glass that stood between me and the girls I venerated.
No longer could I only see, not touch; a lie was a bullet, and the barrier shattered. My mere presence demanded attention — after all, I was the one who got a valentine from Jason, not them. This way I became more than just the tomboyish band geek who finished her multiplication tables embarrassingly fast. My name tumbled out of their mouths and I manifested in the center of their linoleum lunch table. I became, at least temporarily, the fulcrum their world revolved around.
Not only did I lie religiously and unabashedly — I was good at it. The tedium of my everyday life vanished; I instead marched through the gates of my alcazar, strode up the steps of my concepts, and resided in my throne of deceit. I believed if I took off my fraudulent robe, I would become plebeian. The same aristocracy that finally held me in high regard would boot me out of my palace.
I therefore adjusted my counterfeit diadem and continued to praise a Broadway show I had never seen. I drew in an expectant breath, but nobody scoffed. Nobody exchanged a secret criticizing glance. Promptly, my spun stories about swimming in crystal pools under Moroccan new york times personal narrative contest seemed to be in vain.
The following Monday, the girls on the bus to school still shared handfuls of chocolate-coated sunflower seeds with her. For that hour, instead of weaving incessant fantasies, I listened. I listened and I watched them listen, accepting and uncritical of one another no matter how relatively vapid their story.
When first I sat down in the small, pathetic excuse of a cafeteria the hospital had, I took a moment to reflect. I had been admitted the night before, rolled in on a stretcher like I had some sort of ailment that prevented me from walking, new york times personal narrative contest.
They started telling me something, but I paid no attention; I was trying to take in my surroundings, new york times personal narrative contest. The tables were rounded, chairs were essentially plastic boxes with weight inside, and there was no real glass to be seen. After they filled out the paperwork, the nurses escorted me to my room. There was someone already in there, but he was dead asleep.
The two beds were plain and simple, with a cheap mattress on top of an equally cheap wooden frame. One nurse stuck around to hand me my bedsheets and a gown that I had to wear until my parents dropped off clothes. The day had been exhausting, waiting for the psychiatric ward to tell us that there was a bed open for me and the doctors to fill out the mountains of paperwork that come with a suicide attempt.
Actually, there had been one good thing about that day. My parents had brought me Korean food for lunch — sullungtanga fatty stew made from ox-bone broth, new york times personal narrative contest. God, even when I was falling asleep I could still taste some of the rice kernels that had been mixed into the soup lingering around in my mouth.
For the first time, I felt genuine hunger, new york times personal narrative contest. My mind had always been racked with a different kind of hunger — a pining for attention or just an escape from the toil of waking up and not feeling anything. But I always had everything I needed — that is, I always had food on my plate, maybe even a little too much.
Now, after I had tried so hard to wrench myself away from this world, my basic human instinct was guiding me toward something that would keep me alive. The irony was lost on me then. All I knew was that if I slept earlier, that meant less time awake being hungry. So I did exactly that. Waking up the next day, I was dismayed to new york times personal narrative contest that the pangs of hunger still rumbled through my stomach.
I slid off my covers and shuffled out of my room, new york times personal narrative contest. The cafeteria door was already open, and I looked inside. There was a cart of Styrofoam containers in the middle of the room, and a couple people were eating quietly.
I made my way in and stared. I scanned the tops of the containers — they were all marked with names: Jonathan, Nathan, Kristen — and as soon as I spotted my name, my mouth began to water.
My dad would sometimes tell me about his childhood in a rural Korean village. The hardships he faced, the hunger that would come if the village harvest floundered, and how he worked so hard to get out — I never listened. But in that moment, between when I saw my container and I sat down at a seat to open it, new york times personal narrative contest, I understood. The eggs inside were watery, and their heat had condensated water all over, dripping onto everything and making the sausages soggy.
The amount of ketchup was pitiful. When I woke up on August 4,there was only one thing on my mind: what to wear. A billion thoughts raced through my brain as wooden hangers shuffled back and forth in the cramped hotel closet.
Not only was it my first day of high school, but it was my first day of school in a new state; first impressions are everything, and it was imperative for me to impress the people who I would spend the next four years with. For the first time in my life, New york times personal narrative contest thought about how convenient it would be to wear the horrendous matching plaid skirts that private schools enforce.
It was the fact that this was my third time being the new kid. This meant no instant do-overs when I pick up and leave again. This time mattered, and that made me nervous. After meticulously raiding my closet, I emerged proudly in a patterned dress from Target.
Ending a Personal Narrative With Adam - Annotated by the Author
, time: 3:36New York Times: Personals
Times Personals is a new service that lets you meet fellow New York Times readers. Locate like-minded people using the search feature below. A code attached to each personal ad allows you to contact those who interest you via a private voice mail system Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and students ages 16 and older elsewhere, can submit their own contest entries. For students who do not meet these minimum age requirements, an adult, such as a teacher or a parent, must submit on their behalf New York Times Narrative Writing Contest Pascack Valley High School» PV Life» News» What's New» New York Times Narrative Writing Contest Pascack Valley High School is pleased to announce that Diego Mercado, a sophomore student in Mr. Matthew Morone’s English II class, was named a round four finalist in the New York Times Learning Network Student Narrative Contest
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