Projects are an adventure for sixth graders

Some sixth grade adventure fiction projects are now on display in the Children’s Room of the Emerson Public Library. The projects are a creative way for students to showcase their comprehension of class novels.

“It feels good because all of your hard work is being displayed in a public place which is really cool!” sixth-grader Emily Buchert said. “Also, I go to the library a lot so having my project there is a big accomplishment for me. Having my project at the library shows that I didn’t just make the game for a school project, it also shows that my project is well enough to be displayed publicly!”

Book choices included Bloomability by Sharon Creech, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, and Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. Projects included diary entries, photo albums, play scripts, dioramas, board games, and comic strips. Students decided which project they wanted to create and chose to work individually or with classmates. Sixth graders Jason Ziemba and Zuzu Hill worked together on a board game based on Hatchet.

“The most fun part was probably planning out the game board and finally seeing it finished in the end, but the most challenging part of the whole project was making the cards and making sure that they were perfect and having to push in order to finish,” Ziemba said.

“I feel really excited to see how people will respond to our project and what they think of it. I also think it’s pretty cool how we get to share our work with the public,” Hill said.

Students needed to pull evidence from their novel to support their thinking. Each project had a written component.

“The sixth graders worked extremely hard on them [the projects] so they definitely deserve the recognition,” sixth-grade Language Arts teacher Brianna Peros said.