The Best Part of Me

One of our writing projects for the theme of "Identity" is inspired by the book, The Best Part of Me, by Wendy Ewald. She is an award-winning photographer who took striking photographs of 3rd-5th graders after asking them to identify the favorite parts of their bodies. The children then wrote poetry or prose about what their bodies meant to them.

This is a wonderful way to encourage children to appreciate every part of their bodies, and to see themselves in a positive light. We started as we most often do when writing - by brainstorming lots of different parts we appreciate, and what they do for us; how we can tickle someone with our fingers, and skip fast with our feet, and catch snowflakes with our tongues.

Even though we are younger than the authors in the book, we thought our pieces could be powerful, too. Here are some of us today, working with our brainstorming sheets and our photographs (taken by our own award-winning photographer, Val).