‘Wax museum’ brings characters to life
Fifth-grader Garrett Shepherd dressed as Benjamin Franklin tells Evanne Terry about Franklin's life. Students at West Madison Elementary dressed as historical figures and taught other students about their lives.
A ‘wax museum’ of characters brought history alive at West Madison Elementary School on Dec. 15.
Enrichment specialist Wendy Tibbs assigned book reports of biographies but wanted students to share their discoveries.
She instructed students to enact a wax museum by dressing like the biography’s subject. They froze in place like a wax figure, spoke in first person with interesting facts and shared a scrapbook, bulletin board or other product the character may have made.
Lindsay Digges portrayed Anne Sullivan. “She taught Helen Keller, even though she was blind, which was inspirational. I found out Anne had siblings when she was little, and she threw tantrums just like Helen Keller,” Digges said.
Louis Sachar, author of “Holes,” was Kim Dang’s choice. “I never really liked reading but his book made me think. It had a combination of mystery and fact,” Dang said. “Sachar followed his heart and wrote many amazing books.”
Neda Mobasher learned that Soujourner Truth couldn’t read or write. Bonnie Dickerson ‘became’ Maria Tallchief, the country’s first prima ballerina.
Yash Patel wore handcuffs as Harry Houdini. “I was surprised that Houdini never needed help to escape from anything,” Patel said.
Other characterizations included Sam Ward and Marshall Wu as Albert Einstein; Joshua Byers, Mark Twain; Matthew Enfinger, Leif Ericson; Angi Long and Ben Redmill, Steve Jobs; and Claudia Waddell, Juliette Low.
West Madison second- and third-graders toured the ‘wax museum,’ learning about the famous personalities, book reports and seeing “that reading can result in fun projects,” she said. Tibbs videotaped the show for other classes to view.
“This assignment (allowed) them to do something more fun than a paper-and-pencil book report. It was a real way to demonstrate what they’d learned about the person they selected to study,” Tibbs said.
Students also practiced summarizing. “They encapsulated the person’s life story into five to seven sentences, including what impacted the subject most and how the subject changed his/her world,” Tibbs said.
