On September 6, 12-year-old American Beth Melton began "Year 7" at a secondary school for students aged 11 to 18 years in Essex, a county in southeastern England. In the following excerpts from her journal, Beth writes about her experiences both in and out of school.

September 25

I'll have to admit, on the first day of school I wanted to change schools. But I REALLY like it now! My friends are Michelle, Brittany, and Jane. I like Michelle because she's funny and cheerful. Jane is really nice. And Brittany is just silly!

Mr. Woods is my geography teacher. He's hilarious! Sometimes I see him around school during lunch or break wearing neon yellow shorts! He looks so funny! When he's teaching classes he wears a shirt, tie, and slacks. Geography is pretty easy.

Miss Kingsbury is the English teacher. She's really nice. My science teacher is Mrs. Moore. She's pretty strict. Mr. Philpott is my form tutor and my maths teacher too. My German teacher's name is Frau Boysen. She is a good teacher. I really like art, but the art teacher grades really tough! But, as I keep trying to comfort myself, grades don't count this year, since they won't get sent to California.

The only thing I don't like about my school is the lunch lines. It once took 30 minutes for Michelle, Brittany, and Jane to buy their lunches. Since I'm the only one who brings lunch, I have to stay alone and save a spot for them. I don't like that! Someday I'll buy lunch. Also, we don't have those nice little five-minute transition periods between classes that we have at home, so we have to rush, rush, rush to our classes!

October 5

Hello! I've been in school four weeks! Hard to believe, but true! I still like my school, but I'm starting to feel a little bit homesick. I miss my dog Hugo most of all!

I really like English. Miss Kingsbury is nice. We're doing poetry now. There is a poetry contest. I entered my poem called "Night." I hope I win!

Art is really fun. I like drawing portraits, and that's what we're doing now. Last lesson, we went to an art gallery, to its portrait room.

During break, I have a lot of fun with my friends Michelle, Brittany, and Jane. We play on "The Hill" – a secluded spot on the school grounds with a dirt hill and many trees. We play "Hide, Seek, and Run" and also just run up and down the hill.

This week is Harvest Week at school. It's sort of like the canned food drives at home, in that we donate food to poor people. We make banners and boxes and go to assemblies about people who don't have all that we do. Money is also given in sweet little colorful envelopes to third-world countries. It's really fun and for a good cause. We made our class box. It's a sheep, but it turned out kind of bizarre-looking. We named it "Demented Sheep."

October 6

Friday night I went to a Sea Rangers meeting. It's kind of like Girl Scouts, only it focuses on water. During the warm weather, they do sailing on the Thames River. The place where we meet is right at the edge of the Thames. Everyone in the group takes turns cleaning and bailing out the boats. I really want to go sailing, but it's getting colder now, so we won't do that for months and months. The Sea Rangers have a uniform, but I'm not sure what it looks like. There are girls of all ages in the group, from 11 to about 17, it seems like.

My sister and I are also playing in a football club. We practice once a week. I'll tell you about that once we start playing some games, or "friendlies" as they are called when they're just for fun!

Beth's prior journal entries

PearsonAtSchool Products
Writing Journals
You'll find advice on how to use learning logs, reader response journals, and writers' notebooks.

Journals as Frameworks for Change
This book shows you how to guide teachers and school community groups through change.

Lesson Plans
An Immigrant's Story – Grades: 6-12, Language Arts, Social Studies

Web Resources
Reading Matters
Read about Zlata's experiences in war-torn Sarajevo in the book Zlata's Diary.
http://www.readingmatters.co.uk/books/zlata.htm