Fifth-Grade Writers Make a Statement

Leslie Lutz is more than a Humanities Teacher in the Mason Middle School. She’s a writer herself. The author of Fractured Tide, a story about a young woman trapped on a time-bending island, Lutz writes thriller stories for young adults and poetry and short stories for adults. 

Her passion for teaching and writing led her to submit some of her students’ best poetry and short stories to Stone Soup, a literary magazine and website 100% written and illustrated by kids through age 13. Georgia Grace Hoover ’28 recently had a poem, “Ode to Books,” accepted for publication on the Stone Soup blog. The class just finished a poetry unit in which students wrote poems inspired by poets Langston Hughes and William Blake, as well as paintings and sculptures from the Kimbell Art Museum.

In its 48th year, Stone Soup has been inspiring children to read, write, and create their own artworks for publications since 1973. This magazine receives hundreds of submissions from all over the world each month. 
 

Lorena Manrique ’28 and Georgia Grace both earned honorable mentions in the November 2020 Flash Contest for their short stories, “The Witch’s Journey” and “Dragon Tales,” respectively. The contest was based on a Stone Soup’s weekly creativity prompt asking participants to write a story with the traditional fairy tale opening and closing lines. 
 

“I’m always astounded by the creative energy of my fifth-graders,” Lutz said. “When they put a pen to paper and are given permission to create a world, it’s wonderful to see them surprise themselves.”
 

Their next assignment: research papers on a topic they pick on Egypt, and they’ll also create a visual aid and present their topic to the class.