Dear Mia,

I am satisfied with your poem contrasting school in Guayaquil, Ecuador and school in Brooklyn, NY because I am an ENL teacher so all of my students have gone to school in at least two different places and I am always interested in what changes, and what might be strange or unfamiliar at the beginning.

One line of your poem that stood out for me was, “you can meet your classmates in the hallways, you hear a lot of voices, laughter or see the teachers at the doors waiting for their students…” I think this is  beautiful because it captures my favorite moment of the school day, when we all stand in the hallways together and I can see the teenage lives orbiting around our school.

Your writing connects to my own experience. For me, I went to a very small high school with tiny classes, but when I got to college, all of the sudden I was in a huge lecture hall with a lot of strangers.  It was a strange transition, just like yours.

Thanks for your work on Youth Voices. I look forward to seeing what you write next because your writing is very subtle.  I’m not totally sure which school you prefer because there are elements to both environments that you like.  I like it when writing is subtle and doesn’t have any easy conclusions.

Louise