from Eliot Middle School
Eliot Middle School graduate Margo Sorenson, author of 28 books for young readers, presented awards to winning creative writers at an assembly on May 28 in the Eliot Middle School library. Ms. Sorenson promoted from Eliot in 1959, and later based a number of her stories on people she met in middle and high school. (She is also an alumna of John Muir HS.)
The Eliot Middle School PTA created the "Time Traveler Creative Writing Contest," a school-wide contest for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders based on Sorenson's time-travel adventure-biographies, published by Perfection Learning Corporation, in which Kenneth and Aleesa, two middle school characters, travel back in time and try to change the course of history.
The contest was created as part of the PTA’s commemoration of the 150th year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. School-wide, students have been encouraged to think about the freedoms they enjoy and about the sacrifices others have made for those freedoms.
Students were assigned to read one of Sorenson's books, purchased for the school by the PTA. Using various writing prompts provided by the PTA or their teachers, students have written essays using Kenneth and Aleesa as the characters during the Civil War, during the Reformation, or at Manzanar, California in 1942. Students were encouraged to be reflective about the experience and to have learned an important lesson about freedom, sacrifice, and the importance of studying history. A total of seven student writers were awarded Barnes and Noble gift cards, donated by the Eliot Middle School PTA:
6th Grade Winners:1st Place - Phoebe Richardson
2nd Place - Lela Theus
3rd Place - Miranda Hernandez
7th Grade Winners:1st Place - Marcela Banuelos
2nd Place - Donovan Ray
3rd Place - Jewel Theus
8th Grade Creative Winner:Emily Issoglio
More information about Margo Sorenson's books can be found at www.margosorenson.com
