Note: These two samples were written to a Promt in a 45 minute time block.
Steam Powered Locomotive to Monorail
Trains are an important source of transportation to many people. Businessmen who work in Manhattan take the trains from their hometowns
to their offices. Children visiting grandparents take trains to their
grandparents' towns. Trains carry lumber and other types of cargo to places that need it. Trains
sometimes bring the circus to town for the little children to see.
Trains have made a difference in many people's lives. For the settlers in the west, trains
brought news faster and brought goods that they needed. It was also
a faster way of traveling west with fewer hardships and more comfort than in a covered wagon.
Trains also brought food in the winter to the Midwest. However these towns grew dependent on the trains,
and when the trains couldn't get through the snow, towns often went hungry.
Trains also led to the invention of the modern Monorail, which can go much faster than a regular train as well as being more luxurious. People were able to travel in comfort and in style. Trains were also used during the Civil War. They carried soldiers and supplies from place to place.
The train has changed greatly since the early steam powered locomotives. It now runs on electric cables and can go much faster. In France, they have a train that can go up to 300 miles per hour! Then comes the Monorail!
Trains are a major source of transportation and are important to many people. They have made a difference in many people's lives and certainly have changed since those first steam powered locomotives.
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Wings Above the Land
The sun rises. The world awakens. An airplane takes off moving people and
luggage to places across the country. Places they couldn't travel to by
foot or by car. The plane soars through the air breaking the puffs of
clouds like a determined eagle in flight. It lands at its destination in
less than five hours, whereas a car or train, well they would never make
it.
An airplane is a very important source of transportation. This vehicle
changed the face of our nation. The airplane has made a vast difference
while it carries us to places faster than any train or car. When people
are in need of getting over a large body of water, the plain awaits them. Mostly you can easily get around lakes, lagoons and smaller waters, such as rivers, but take a large river like the Nile or Mississippi, even an ocean like the Atlantic. It would take long tiring hours to get around those waters if you could at all! An airplane also has the advantage of carrying more people at a time. You can be ahead of a car with all your family members beside you flying over the Pacific Ocean in reach of your vacation spot. Or you could be in your rusty Volkswagen three hours behind, running out of gas and wondering how do you get around that darn Nile River?
Besides the transportation benefits you get from an airplane, the vehicle
itself is quite interesting to contemplate. The airplane has two broad
wings parallel to each other on either side of the plane's body. It has
a nose and yet is often described as a "bird." There is roomy space
inside so you can stand up and walk around, along with leather seats and
viewing windows. They are many kinds of planes from jets to 1-pilot planes.
Planes are also used for many purposes like war transportation with bombing
and business travel.
Many famous people or pilots have been seated in the cockpit of a plane.
Long ago, Amelia Earhardt flew solo in a plane, and recently, 7-year-old
Jessica did after taking many lessons.
We are lucky someone out there in our technology world invented
such a smart machine people were starved for. Cars are great for many
things, and boats are too, for just traveling overseas, but nothing will
beat the airplanes for their advantages in velocity, space and adaptations.
Unless, of course, that changes in the future.
Samples were written by Ms. Ondek's students at Mill Hill School, Southport, Connecticut.
By Hallock S.
Grade 5
The train speeds into Grand Central Station with tons of commuters who are going to
their offices in the skyscrapers of New York. Trains are a major form of transportation and are
important to many people.
By Allison H.
Grade 5