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| Click here to see our video introduction. |
Introduce your town to the world with an activity adapted from Paul Janeczko's Favorite Poetry Lessons. He uses an example poem "What to Do in Rudd, Iowa" by two high school students, John Grosshoeme and K. McCullough to illustrate that interesting details can paint a picture of what life is like in your community. This is an activity with an authentic audience for an authentic purpose.
Students in all four of my sixth grade classrooms added lines, all lines contributing to the description of a sleepy town in rural Missouri.
Things to Do in Fair Grove, Missouri
Watch the trucks and trailers pull out for the race on Saturday night.
Wave at the guy on the tractor.
Praise the Lord at the Methodist Church.
Go to the rodeo and watch the little boys ride sheep.
Examine the exhaust pipes at O'Reilly's Auto Parts.
Thank your favorite waitress at Sheila's.
Hang out at Kum and Go and buy a blue Gatorade.
Count the toilet paper at Dollar General.
Get a new style at Modern Waves.
Smack a pie in your best friend's face at the Fall Festival.
Pop open a book at the library.
Watch them milk at Buckner farm.
Wake up and see the deer grazing in the open field.
I compiled a long list of the lines that would be suitable for a photograph and invited students to take pictures. Two students took me up on the offer and I used their photos, plus three or four pulled from the Internet, to create a PhotoStory.
Our original intention was to send our introduction to a soldier stationed in Iraq who had promised to correspond with us and get a number of other soldiers to do the same. We excitedly sent our video to him, plus letters from each of the students, but never did hear back.
No matter. Our school community liaison sent our video to the Community Foundation of the Ozarks (a grant-funding source for our school) who in turn sent it out to the Rural School and Community Trust, a national nonprofit, where it appeared for some time on their website home page.
Laurie from Laquey High School suggests that students could exchange video introductions with students in other schools. I am thinking that our video could be linked to Fair Grove's Chamber of Commerce or city websites and get continued exposure.
What is there to do in your town?
