Filed under: Humanities
These posts should be familiar by now, I talk about the winter exhibition, what the process of building ad brainstorming was, talk about the set up, and then I show the product. I want to change that. I want to show what we did before I give any context, as if you, the reader, are actually experiencing the exhibition. Going in blind. So, without further ado, this is PLP 11’s special feature presentation: The Carousel of Communism.
Every year we do two exhibitions. These serve different purposes but in the end they all are centred around one idea, showing big projects that we have worked on for a long time to the public, our peers, parents and teachers. I have done six of these in the past. In grade 8 and 9 we had themed winter exhibitions, Harry Potter and Star Wars. in grade 10 we used the event to gather stories to make podcast out of. And at the end of June, we always to an inquiry project. This is my most recent blue sky post, about my exhibition in June, 2018.
This year we did something so out of the ordinary it was insane. This was a second go at a kind of exhibit the teachers have only ever done once, with last years graduating class, back when they were in grade 11. The idea is to create an immersive experience, where guests are brought into the gym and are walked through a story with multiple underlying themes. They did WWI, we did the 1950s. But not just the 1950s, we started by reading a book. The book we read was The Crucible, a story written in 1950, by Arthur Miller. The book is about Salem and the Salem with trials. The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts in 1692. More than 200 people were accused, nineteen of whom were found guilty and executed by hanging. Throughout reading the book, we did a series of ‘Crucible Creative Creations,’ where we used the themes from the book, a list of prompts and made 3 blog posts. You can click the buttons below to read those recent posts.
These posts were very good because it not only gave us a chance to show our understanding of themes that would come in to be very helpful sooner than we thought. It also gave us a chance to dust off our blogs, and make some really good quality posts and media. This all came into play later in our exhibition!
The next part of our exhibition that ww needed to learn about was the 1950s. We started in a lighthearted and funny way. We watched a TV show. That might sound odd, you’re probably thinking, ‘These kids do nothing but mess around in class!’ Well, kinda, but I swear this show had some reason of why it was shown in class. The show was Leave it to Beaver. Leave It to Beaver is an American television sitcom about an inquisitive and often irritating boy, Theodore “The Beaver” Cleaver. Also we are thrown into a 1950s household sand start to understand what the ‘perfect family’ is as well as starting to learn some mannerisms and sayings, some fashion, and some general themes from the 50s. Here is a short trailer.
Well, we had the knowledge of the 50s. But how did it relate to the Salem Witch Trials. Well, there was another witch hun in the 1950s, the same hunt that inspire Arthur Miller to write his book about the events that he saw happening again. The McCarthyism Trials. The McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate’s Subcommittee on Investigations to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy.
So we had knowledge about the 1950s, where it was going to be set, and where our characters would be from. We knew about the witch trials and how it connected. Now, it was time to make this dream an actual reality. Our two teachers went away for a week on a field school with the grade 9s, and they left us for a week unsupervised to plan. We did just that.
The very first thing we did, that took a surprising amount of time was beaten all of our knowledge into a handful of ideas. We then took those ideas for themes and started making each into an idea for a station, 1 through 7 as you walk through. This was done on the white board.
The next things we did happened a the same time, and we broke off into two groups. The first thing that was happening was that a small group was working to start assign roles. Who would do what. Who would write the script, who would make the costumes and more. As well as making small groups for researching each station. We then had a large group of people making story spines for each station.
Story Spines
Roles
Then the teachers came home, and I don’t want to sound overconfident or cocky, but our two teachers were very happy and had very little to change. The only thing we did was combine scene 1&2, as well as put the originally final scene, the Eisenhower speech first.
After that check-in with the teachers it was time for mayhem. Prop time. We had a ton of props to bring in, this is all off those props written on the board. I said props to bring in. Not make. Throughout the process of making the props we had to bring all of this in, as well as costumes, we had to make a script, and somehow not panic too much.
I mentioned building props. Here are some lovely pictures of your favourite class, PLP 11 building said props.
During the planning and building of the exhibition my role was to be one of the two Co-Producers. I shared these duties with Mimi, we were essentially overseeing the operation and spearheading the project. This means that I saw everything from start to finish. I was involved in research, script writing, set design, costumes, character development, and everything in between. I saw it all. Overall in my opinion, this is the most impressive piece of work that I have seen from anybody in this class, and some of the best that I have put in. We worked extremely hard, as a team of 18 to make everything you saw in that video of the production, and a to more behind the scenes. We played as a team. I am proud of the team. And I am so proud to say that I was at least partially in charge. I am proud of the product, the process, and the learning.
