A smiling girl wearing a USA wrestling uniform bent over in wrestling stance
Steven Meckler
You Write It Interview,

Into the World of a Teen Wrestling Champ

Wrestling champion Audrey Jimenez, 15, talks about being one of the only girls on her school’s wrestling team in Tucson, Arizona. 

By Michelle Crouch
From the December 2020 / January 2021 Issue
Common Core Standards
  • Anchor Standards
    R.1, W.5, L.3
  • Grade 6

    RI.6.1, W.6.5, L.6.3
  • Grade 7
    RI.7.1, W.7.5, L.7.3
  • Grade 8

    RI.8.1, W.8.5 , L.8.3
TEKS Standards
  • Grades 6, 7, 8
    10b, 10c, 10d

Presentation View
See Student View

Directions

1. Read the interview. 

2. Choose a central idea for your article. 

3. Write a three-paragraph article about Audrey in your own words. Use quotes from our interview.

Scope: How did you get into wrestling?

Audrey: I used to play softball and run cross-country. About three years ago, I started jujitsu, which is a martial art similar to karate. My coach taught me a move called a takedown, which is a wrestling move. I loved it. I realized that wrestling seemed more interesting to me.

Scope: How did you start wrestling on a boys team?

Audrey: When I started wrestling in middle school, my school didn’t have a girls team. My older sister managed the wrestling team at her high school and when they had meets, I’d go with her. She introduced me to the coach and told him that I’d like to start wrestling with the team. He was all for it, so I started practicing with them. At the time, I was the only girl.

Scope: How did that first practice go? 

Audrey: There weren’t any kids my size, so I was nervous. The wrestling room was a much different environment than the softball field. It was hot and the workout we did was hard. By the end, I was sweating and tired! 

Scope: How did the boys react to you?

Audrey: They probably thought I wouldn’t know anything, but when I told them about my background in jujitsu, they respected that. Still, no one came over to talk to me. They didn’t really accept me at first—plus, they went easy on me, and I hated it. I felt like I wasn’t learning anything. Once we became closer, I was like, “Just go hard like you would with anyone else. I’m no different.” Now we’re friends. We hang out after school. We teach each other. We help each other in school, in wrestling, and in life. 

Steven Meckler

Wrestling Superstar 

Audrey wrestles for multiple teams: Sunnyside High School, Sunnyside Wrestling Academy, and the United World Wrestling 15U USA National Team. 

Scope: What about your competitors? 

Audrey: There were a few tournaments when a coach would go up to my dad and say “She’s a girl. Why is she wrestling?” It only made me more determined to do well to prove them wrong.

Scope: What does your training involve? 

Audrey: At practice, we start off jogging and stretching. Then we do gymnastics to learn different ways to move around the mat. We’ll do forward rolls, backward rolls, handsprings, cartwheels, backflips. At the end of practice, we partner up and do simulation matches. I practice five times a week. On Sundays, which is a recovery day, I stretch or go running. 

Scope: What’s been your biggest wrestling accomplishment so far?

Audrey: In May 2019, I won a women’s national tournament in Texas. Then in October, I won gold in women’s freestyle at the U15 Pan American Championships. I went undefeated in all three of my matches. 

Scope: What are your hopes for the future?

Audrey: I’d love to go to the Olympics. I’ve also been encouraging more girls at my school to start wrestling. I did a wrestling demo at school one day with the boys so that the girls could see that they can do it too. Now we have a girls team, too, and I wrestle for both teams.

This article was originally published in the December 2020 / January 2021 issue.


video (1)
Activities (5)
Reference
Writing Support
video (1)
Activities (5)
Reference
Writing Support
Step-by-Step Lesson Plan

Close Reading, Critical Thinking, Skill Building

1. READING THE INTERVIEW

  • Give students a minute to preview the You Write It: Interview. Prompt students to use the headline, subhead, and central image to identify the topic of the interview.
  • Break students into groups to read each section of the interview and discuss what they find interesting, surprising, or convincing.
  • Reconvene as a class and ask volunteers to summarize the central idea and supporting details from the interview. Have a volunteer read aloud the writing prompt at the top of the page in the printed magazine or at the top of the digital story page. Brainstorm examples of central ideas (or central claims) that could be used.

2. MODELING THE TEXT

If your students need additional support, project the Annotated Model Text or the Non-Annotated Model Text and review together first.

3. WRITING

  • Distribute the guided-writing activity (available in your Resources tab). This activity guides students to choose a central idea for their articles, paraphrase each question-and-answer pair from the interview, and choose sentences from the interview that they will use as quotations in their articles.
  • Using their responses from the guided-writing activity, have students write a three-paragraph article about the inspiring student using these guidelines:
    •    Opening Paragraph:
      • Your first sentence should be a hook—that is, it should grab the reader’s attention. One option is to state something that is surprising, interesting, or moving. What detail from the interview did you find most interesting?
      • Let readers know what the article is going to be about. In other words, state the central idea of the article.
    •  Body Paragraph:
      • Explain to your readers what the inspiring student’s experience was like, using information from the question-and-answer pairs you summarized.
      • Summarize the most important ideas presented in the interview. Each idea you include should support the central idea that you wrote.
      • Don’t forget to include the direct quotes you chose.
    • Conclusion:
      • Wrap it all up. End your article with a strong sentence that will give your readers something to think about. One option is to end with a quote. Another is to refer to your hook from the opening paragraph.
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