What Online Learning Has Been Like For Me

by Marylene Bioh

In mid-March 2020, I was having a wonderful week in school until I heard these words come out of my 8th-grade science teacher’s mouth: “So guys, if you haven’t heard about COVID-19, cases are rising so there’s a possible chance we’ll be out of school, and if it gets worse, we might not come back.”

Choosing Myself

by Faith Ornstein

In 17 years, I’ve had to move more than 10 times throughout New York City. In 3rd grade, I attended five different schools. As a child, I never understood why my family moved around like a military family, but now I know some of the reasons. 

The Privilege of Telling My Side of the Story

by Seohee Jung

My younger brother and I grinned at each other from the back seat of my grandpa’s Jeep: We were making a rare trip to Burger King. I was 11. We had been living in the United States for four years after emigrating from South Korea, and most of the time, my mom preferred that we eat her home-cooked Korean meals.

Losing My Brother

by Anonymous

Names have been changed. My brother Thomas is only three years older than me. We didn’t feel close to our mom, our stepfather, or our dads. So growing up, it felt like it was just the two of us. We had so much fun playing video games, basketball, and other games we created.

Writing Contest Winners Spring 2022

Four times a year, we ask our readers to write about the impact recent stories have had on teens around the country. In Spring 2022, we had a range of responses from writers connecting to stories about family income, race, and fitting in.

There’s never just one way

by Maddy Goldstein

When I was in kindergarten, my mom read my favorite book to my class, How My Parents Learned to Eat. It’s the story of a Japanese woman and an American man who learned to use each other’s traditional utensils when they met: a fork and a knife for the Japanese woman and chopsticks for the American man.