The Great Gatsby Collaborative Project (11th Grade English) 2014

We had the opportunity to work with 11th grade English teachers to bring a Common Core enrichment activity to their students. They had just read The Great Gatsby and the goal was to bring the culture of the 1920s to life in the LHS Library Media Center. We started brainstorming ideas for this activity about two months before the event. Library Media Specialist, Mrs. Misti Bell and Library Assistant, Mrs. Peggy Schaeffer did the bulk of the work on the design of this wonderful program! You can see the layout in a big part of the library below. The decorations and setup they chose were distinguished! The library looked like a ballroom!

It was decided to include the following "learning stations" in the library: Art Deco, a Charlie Chaplin silent movie, a Wordle station (students could write words or quotes from Gatsby), iPad Gatsby game/ app, Prohibition video, and the Charleston dance. Students had approximately five minutes at each station (we split them up into equal groups as they entered the library). 

(Art Deco Station)

(Charleston Dance Station- this was the favorite of the students!)

Check out this video clip of our Charleston Dance Station! 

It was also decided that we would have a "Garden Party" station. We collaborated with Mr. Tom Vance, local director of Chartwells (the food service company we outsource through at Lakeside). He read Gatsby several weeks before the program and built a menu around the garden party mentioned in the book! 

The menu featured salad, "pigs in a blanket", turkey, ham, orange juice, and lemonade.

The program was a great success! The students, faculty, and administration were all excited about taking a trip back to the 1920s! In addition, it was our second major collaborative event this school year at the high school level. I'll share about the other big high school event (10th Grade Africa Day) on a future post! 

Pictured left to right: Mrs. Peggy Schaeffer (library assistant), Mrs. Misti Bell (LMS), Mrs. Jerrie Stanage (11th Grade English), Mrs. Jennifer Garner (11th Grade English), Stony Evans (LMS)

Click here to see how we presented this program the next year in 2015! 

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