Youth Writer Prize in nonfiction
Dec. 22—Perseverance in Math
Juliette Anderson, 13, Santa Fe
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Perseverance is like the trail up a steep mountain. It's what keeps you going when things get tough. Perseverance is like the key to a locked door. It's what lets you do the things that seem impossible. In math, perseverance is the bridge between reading a math problem and solving a math problem. I've crossed this bridge of perseverance many times, not just for individual math problems, but also in ways that have changed how I think about math entirely. Now, I cross the bridge every day as I learn new concepts in math. With the key of perseverance, I can do the things I never thought I could do. Perseverance helps me see the trail up the steep mountainous edge of a math problem and navigate the numbers. I always carry some form of perseverance in my backpack, and in turn, it carries me through every obstacle I come across, especially in math.
The first time I ever crossed the bridge of perseverance, I was in third grade and didn't care much about math. I didn't find doing math very fun, and as a result, I thought I was horrible at math. Refusing to let me fall into the stereotype of girls who are bad at math, my parents got me a tutor, who then showed me that math was actually a ton of fun. He showed me how to use perseverance to unlock the door to a math problem.
WE ALSO LOVED ...
Santa Fe is filled with talented, up-and-coming young writers, which made it hard to select our top entries for this year's writing contest. So we wanted to include the following list that spotlights a few more of our favorites, and offer our encouragement to these writers to keep writing and sharing your voices with the literary world.
* Tally Hall, by Jacquelyn Pino, 12, Rio Rancho, Rio Rancho Middle School
JUDGE'S COMMENT
We only had a few entries in youth nonfiction, but I felt a solidarity with these youngsters. I was that kid several decades ago. I was the 14-year-old writing for my high school newspaper and sending in (very bad) poetry to The Atlantic in the hopes that the editors would publish it. Keep at it, kids. The world is waiting to hear more of your voice. — Spencer Fordin, nonfiction judge
At the beginning of fourth grade, instead of thinking I was bad at math, I thought of myself as an average math student. That year, I climbed up a tall, steep mountain with perseverance at my side, while I memorized my multiplication tables using a program called Reflex Math. Every day, I climbed a little higher up the rocky mountain of multiplication. After a few months of hard work, I was the first person in my class to be 100 percent mastered in multiplication. Without my key of perseverance, I wouldn't have been able to do this. By the end of fourth grade, I began to feel pretty confident in my mathematical abilities, because I was able to persevere and cross all the bridges that got in the way of solving a math problem.
In fifth grade, I was put into the advanced math group called The Beast Group. I learned how to do more challenging types of math, including problems with negative numbers and how to multiply and divide fractions. I spent many hours working on two online math programs, Beast Academy and Manga High. At the end of fifth grade, I began to feel even more confident in my math skills.
Over the summer, I worked on expressions and equations on Beast Academy, and kept working at each problem until I was able to get everything right on the tests for each unit. I was always able to pull some perseverance out of my backpack and navigate the trail of every math problem.
Although math hadn't always been my strong suit, perseverance helped me overcome my negative feelings about it. And by sixth grade, I felt like math was a part of me and how I defined myself. I was still in the advanced math group and working hard in math. I did pre-algebra and took every opportunity to improve my math skills. That year, I used the key to perseverance to unlock a tall, impenetrable door when I was getting ready for a pi memorization contest on pi day. When I first found out there would be a pi contest, I was determined to memorize as many of the infinite digits in pi as possible. About a week before the contest, I began to memorize some digits. At first, all I knew was 3.141592, but after about 15 minutes, I was able to learn 10 more digits. Every chance I got, I worked on getting over the bridge of perseverance. I learned more and more digits of pi. By the day of the contest, I knew 65 digits. I won the contest using my key of perseverance to open the door that seemed impossible to open.
Perseverance has shown me that I can do hard things, especially when it comes to math. Perseverance is something I use every day just like I use a pencil. It's always there, waiting for me to pull it out of my backpack, whether it's in the form of a trail, a key, or a bridge. Without my perseverance to guide me up mountains, the path would be hidden by a forest of trees. Without my key of perseverance to unlock all the doors, there would be no challenges, only things you can do easily and things you can't do at all. Without bridges of perseverance, every math problem would be a lifelong struggle. Perseverance guides you along through every challenge that comes your way. When you have perseverance, the impossible is always possible.
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Juliette is a seventh grader at Santa Fe Prep. She enjoys writing, ballet, and math.
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