Congratulations to Agnes G in Year 6 who has been awarded first place in a national ISA essay writing competition. Agnes entered the Horsey category and wrote an outstanding short story about a Knight and an adventure in a dark forest.
We are sure you will enjoy this extract from her story.
The forest was an abyss of black, a nightmarish void, ominous and harsh – and Francesca was plunged in. Howls cut across the landscape, and glowing eyes loomed and leered high and low. Even the quietest rustle terrified her – and then she came to the Death Vines.
They were an assortment, an army, of thorny, poisonous vines that spoke at you, trying to lure you to them, to sink into the depths of the world. Francesca gulped. She wanted desperately to run, to flee and never come anywhere near here again. But she had to. So she mustered the small amount of courage she had, and slashed across the vines. Low, lullaby voices began to whisper about her, a choir of distorted sound. Francesca froze. Trembling, she walked, as if in a trance, to the middle. And once she was there, knocked out of her stupor, she realised she was trapped. Instantly, she had an idea. She’d got this far -and hadn’t even got a scratch! So she pretended to be in a trance… Slowly, she unfocused her eyes, loosened her limbs, and walked steadily, and escaped the wrath of the Death Vines.
You can read Agnes’ full story, which has been published on the ISA website below.
https://www.isaschools.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Horsey-Category-winning-essays.pdf
The judges were wowed with Agnes’ sophisticated writing style and commented:
As the action reaches a crescendo, Agnes shows a mastery of sentence structure through embedded phrases like “They growled-a guttural noise from the throat-and advanced” and fronted clauses “Emboldened by this, she cut.” Her style is concise and effective! The denouement reaches a fitting climax with action packed verbs: “She lunged and parried and rolled” and is rounded off with “she was transported home as a true knight-and a hero.” Perhaps with a higher word count, the ending could have been extended. Agnes has an accomplished writing style.
Well done Agnes, we are extremely proud of you!
