Winners

Shannon Katzenberger, 17, Lakewood High School, Lakewood, Ohio: “Strike”Shruti Ram, 17, Ridge High School, Basking Ridge, N.J.: “Places!”Simba Li, 16, Sevenoaks School, Sevenoaks, England: “Our Song”Sophia Phaugat, 17, Shikshantar Senior Secondary School, Gurugram, India: “Ghost Horses of Home in Pandora’s Box”Sophie Kalagher, 14, Jonathan Law High School, Milford, Conn.: “I’m Not Hungry”Timothy Hoksida Gabbard, 16,…

Blythe S., “Phone Calls”Chloe J., “Material Mirage: The Social Dilemma of Today’s Youth”Eduardo C., “My Brain Is a Southern Gothic Battlefield for Vampires in Tweed Suits and Teacher Rec Letters”Ela K., “chemistry class poem”Eva R., “A Day in the Life”Gabriella N., “A Life Without Music”Grant M., “This Feels Good”Hridya S., “Phone Pockets”Isabel N., “We are…

Read critical commentary by teenagers on a high school cafeteria, Breath of the Wild, Balenciaga’s new line and more.

We invited teenagers to write miniature memoirs about meaningful moments in their lives. Read the 13 winning stories.

“The Honest Confessions of a Seventeen Year Old Girl” by Becky Zhong, 17, Shanghai American School, Puxi, Shanghai“Is Social Security Really Enough?” by Fabio Oh, 18, Cerritos High School, Cerritos, Calif.“Look in a Book,” Rebekah Poteet, 17, Cleburne High School, Cleburne, Texas“Moments of Happiness” by Flor “The Oberheim and Its Legacy” by Jacob Atkins, 19,…

Victor Xu, age 14, The Crescent School, Toronto: “Our Educational System Should Better Serve Introverted Students”Sanjana Yasna, age 16, Stuyvesant High School, New York, N.Y.: “Let’s End the Period of Shame”Sarah Yee, age 15, Granite Bay High School, Granite Bay, Calif.: “Open Your Eyes to See Mine Are Not Your Trend”Hanna Zhao, age 14, John…

Runners-UpAlyse Wicentowski, “Heart”Angel Zhao and Fiona Xing, “teenage homage”Bobby Goldyn, 14, “Lost Voices”Cassie Garrett, 14, “Kindness in the Pandemic”Dorothy Du, 16, “The Sound of Rain”Eliana Robin, 15, “Warning: The World is Crumbling”Eveleen Jiang, 17, “Out of Touch”Hailey Jones, 15, “Growing Up in 2021”Hiewon Ahn, “A Cutlery Awakening”Ilona Lebron, 18, “Painting Something New”James Kim, 17, “Life…

“Dress Codes: Cover Up” by Delaney Church, 18, New Tech Academy at Wayne High School, Fort Wayne, Ind.“Exploding Facts — Eggs!” by Mia Tweel, 11, Luria Academy, Brooklyn, N.Y.“Gentrification = wack” by Anissa Adams, 17, Cerritos High School, Cerritos, Calif.“The Great Footsteps I Walk In” by Nikhil Damji, 14, Lakeside School, Seattle, Wash.“Hearing Loss and…

That day, a boy told me he liked my hair.I immediately understood this boy to be The One. He flirted with me more than he flirted with other girls, and sometimes even looked at me while I spoke. I wrote him love letters in the form of homework questions that could easily have been answered…

“The Dangers of the Internet for Two Teenage Girls” by Sanaz Zaman, 13, and Hong Yeju, 13, UCSI International School, Selangor, Malaysia“The Fear of Missing Out, That’s Me” by Aram Kim, 13, Surbiton High School, Surrey, England“Pets the New Cool” by Ananyaa Sultania, 12, and Shaurya Sultania, 10, Eager Readers, Hyderabad, India“Should Children Be Separated…