Page to Stage

The students are working in groups lately to bring stories of local history to life on the stage. They've been helped in these efforts by members of Saranac Lake's own full time theatre company, Pendragon Theatre.
The Historic Saranac Lake Wiki has been a great resource for the students, who have visited the site for research and historically accurate details to include in their "mini-plays."
Among the topics the students have focused on are Winter Carnival, TB curing, bootlegging, and camping.

Local History: From Page to Stage

Today the students were visited by writer Liza Frenette. She's a magazine writer and author of children's books.
Liza's visit marks the beginning of a month long project (made possible, in part, by an Arts in Education grant from the New York State Council on the Arts) in which students will draw on the resources and expertise of community partners Historic Saranac Lake and Pendragon Theatre to bring local history to life on the stage.
As part of our annual grade seven "Page to Stage" project, the students will work in groups to write "mini-plays" based on people and events from local history. The students will stage these plays for an audience on Friday, March 23 (more information on how you can watch the plays later).
Last fall, grade 7 social studies students teamed with Historic Saranac Lake to research our area's role in the treatment of TB. They also examined historical photographs with local artist Mark Kurtz. Students may decide to use that work as the basis for their plays. Students might also wish to explore a family member's connection to local history and develop that story in the form of a dramatic presentation. I'll be encouraging the students to talk to their families and neighbors for potential story ideas.
I'll be blogging about the students' progress as the project unfolds.

More Monsters

We finished reading Rod Serling's (he's from Upstate New York!) "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" last week, in honor of Saranac Lake's 2012 Winter Carnival theme.
Today, we looked at the story's epilogue, and viewed a video clip from The Twilight Zone.
We also continued our editing practice by reading and correcting an article about a winter festival in Sapporo, Japan.

Alien Invasion!

Saranac Lake's Winter Carnival kicks off this week, and I always like to try to tie in some classroom content with each year's theme.
This week, we'll examine reports of strange lights in the North Country skies. Then, we'll read together a screenplay about the hysteria unleashed on a quiet street when a suspected alien invasion begins (Rod Serling's "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street").

Happy Carnival!

Injustice and Chocolate

We've had an infusion of non-fiction into our class lately. First, we viewed the documentary film The Dark Side of Chocolate. This film details the illegal practice of forcing children to work as slaves in the cocoa fields of Africa. Next, we looked at an excerpt from a speech that Martin Luther King gave in 1967. In it, he challenges the reader to realize how connected we all are to each other:
 It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world?
Today we examined the "Raise the Bar Hershey" campaign. This is an effort that aims to pressure Hershey to engage in "fair trade" business practices.
 

"The Fan Club" by Rona Maynard

Rona Maynard's short story, "The Fan Club" is on tap as we open a unit on social justice. Peer pressure figures prominently in this story and many students report that while they face similar pressures from peers, they are confident that that are equipped to deal with it.
We've also begun some language study this week, and classes have discussed the Latin root "uni," as in The students unanimous reaction to the ending of  "The Fan Club" was contempt for the main character, Laura.

Local Author Needs Your Help!

Kate Messner is a local author who has a string of successful books, among them The Brilliant of Gianna Z   and Sugar and Ice.
Recently, Kate asked for students to respond to a survey about their views of the future. Kate's upcoming book (March 2012 release date), Eye of the Storm, has a futuristic setting.
We'll spend a bit of time in class this week responding to Kate's survey.