About the Young Writers Project
YWP, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, Vermont, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power and to gain confidence and skills for the workplace and life. YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org, which has only one rule: Be respectful. For more information, please contact YWP executive director Geoffrey Gevalt at ggevalt@youngwritersproject.org.
This week’s Young Writers Project writer is Hannah Frasure, 14, of Shelburne, who writes about saying goodbye to her old school and hello to her new one – with both optimism and apprehension.
Hello/goodbye
By Hannah Frasure
[H]ello new classrooms with bright, shiny pencils.
Goodbye old carpets with scattered, worn-down leads.
Hello new bus routes with unfamiliar faces.
Goodbye old, busy road which I used to tromp down.
Hello new cafeteria with a rumor the food is more than just edible.
Goodbye old pizza Wednesdays with your cardboard crust.
Hello new foreign, grayed buildings with undiscovered grounds.
Goodbye old, red schoolhouse with luscious flower tree fields.
Hello new strange, winding halls with large throngs of people.
Goodbye old warmly dusted vestibules cramped tight with friendly bodies.
Hello new classes opening with a variety of minds.
Goodbye old insular cliques and frustratingly annoying people.
Hello unpredictable grading system.
Goodbye old nothing-but-straight-A’s.
Hello new teachers.
Goodbye old teachers.
Hello new friends.
Goodbye old friends.
Hello new memories.
Goodbye old ones.
Hello new school.
Goodbye old school.
Check out the August issue of The Voice, the Young Writers Project monthly digital magazine. Click here.
