Students write stories to teach children lessons

Pens fly across pieces of notebook paper and fingers fly across keyboards as students work tirelessly, trying to perfect the stories they have slaved over for so long.

Mrs. Shari Halpin’s creative writing class is creating children’s stories, with the possibility of sending them off for publishing and maybe even taking a field trip to read them to children at local elementary schools.

“I think it’s a fun idea because of the possibility of a field trip,” sophomore Cali McCulloch said.

The students each picked a theme from which to base their stories. They read them to each other Feb. 8-9.

“My story teaches kids that it’s okay to be different,” sophomore Madison Caddell said, “and that just because there are some bad people, doesn’t make them all bad.”

Each student chose a unique message that they believe children need to learn.

“I chose the moral I did because after researching Where the Wild Things Are I realized that it has an awful moral about growing up at a very young age,” freshman Elijah Sattler said. “I chose to contradict that by writing about staying young and keeping your childhood.”

Halpin’s students feel the need to be cautious in their writing.

“It puts a lot of pressure on you to write for kids,” Sattler said. “You don’t want to give them the wrong idea or teach them the wrong moral.”

Caddell agrees wholeheartedly about the stress placed on her and her fellow students.

“The hardest part is watching Mrs. Halpin read your story, and seeing her facial expressions change with the story,” Caddell said.

The students are either sending the stories off to a publisher to see if the stories are worthy of publishing, or just keeping them for the writing portfolio that will be compiled at the end of the year.