Photo courtesy of Dallas ISD.

A junior at Woodrow Wilson High School was a runner up at The New York Times’ Student Editorial Contest.

Sign up for our newsletter

* indicates required

Patricia McDonald was one of about 11,200 middle- and high-school students who submitted work to the eighth annual competition. Her essay is one of 16 runners-up.

McDonald sings in the choir and is an editor for the yearbook. Woodrow English teacher Laurie Gustafson submitted several of her students’ persuasive essays to the competition.

In her writing, McDonald argued that poetry should be taught more extensively in school.

“I think there can be a lot of catharsis from reading and writing poetry, if it’s something that speaks to you, or it’s something that you can emotionally connect to,” McDonald told the Hub. “My generation is one with a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. A lot of the time, poetry can be a creative outlet for people, and I think it’s not explored as much, and it’s a useful one because it’s very abstract.”

Find McDonald’s essay here.