Williams Wells Brown Elementary capped the semester with student performances of two pourquoi tales – stories that explain how something in nature came to be, namely “How the Flamingo Lost His Color” and “Why the Sun and the Moon Don’t See Each Other.”
Carrie Mulert, the school’s gifted and talented (GT) resource teacher, and LaKeitha Brooks, the library media specialist, teamed up to lead the project. Some two dozen students – through their elective specials classes like music, art, and drama – submitted original stories for consideration, and the teachers picked two to develop into brief schoolwide productions.
“It was all student-driven,” Mulert said, noting that many of the fourth and fifth graders had never been in front of an audience before. “We talked about courage and being brave and that you don’t know what you can do if you don’t try.”
Over the past six weeks, groups of students researched the Amazon rainforest and our solar system, wrote scripts from the chosen stories, adapted the scripts into play formats, designed and built the sets, and choreographed the dances. Some children had speaking parts, others were in support roles, and still others worked behind the scenes as stage crews.
The project enabled the students to embrace new experiences and gain self-confidence. Meanwhile, Mulert plans to use this opportunity to identify candidates for GT services at William Wells Brown, which is one of our district’s Promise Academies.
Did you know?
Fayette County Public Schools works hard to ensure that every student is successful. For those at Harrison Elementary and William Wells Brown Elementary, the district takes extra steps to meet that goal through an initiative called the Promise Academies, which launched in 2019-20. The aim is to provide enhanced educational offerings for these children by extending the school day and adding more days to the school year. This structure allows FCPS to build in more learning time and give students additional enrichment experiences in art, music, computer, physical education, and world languages.
Posted Dec. 16, 2022
