It is one thing to memorize some key facts about colonial America – it is another thing to really learn about it and then weave it into a song and/or script as a part of a school performance.
Since October, Howe Hall AIMS fourth graders have worked hard on their musical production “Colonial Voices: Stories That Shaped a Nation,” set to hit the stage Thursday evening. The show reflects what the fourth graders are currently learning about in social studies. VIEW PHOTOS
The school’s shows are designed around grade-level standards and from infusion lessons. The students take the lead in writing the scripts, and the songs are collaboratively created by the students and the music teacher, Cathy Liebenow.
With the students singing, rapping, acting and dancing about history, Liebenow said these historical facts are going to stick with the students.
VIDEO: Play Overview & Student Interviews
“There’s a lot of words on this show – we have a lot of lyrics and there’s a lot of facts about earlier colonial America,” she said.
Some of the historical figures the students cover in the production include Major General John Sullivan, American soldier William Jasper, military officer Paul Revere and British soldier Peter Parker (not to be confused with Spiderman’s secret identity – the students will correct you). A few of the tunes are set to the music of some popular pieces including “The Final Countdown,” “When I Ruled the World” and “O Fortuna”.
Liebenow said the show evolved as students threw out ideas of what they wanted to try – the raps, the dance moves, etc. This is actually the second production this year; the third graders did a program on English/language arts standards earlier this year.
Liebenow said she is excited that the students are learning about America through this show.
“I am so excited about history – if I wasn’t a music teacher, I think I would want to be a history teacher,” Liebenow said. “I love American history, and I feel like this generation does not know sometimes the seriousness of how America began and the sacrifices people made – if you didn’t work, you didn’t make it.”
The fourth graders can attest that the play has helped them learn the classroom material. Marshall McMinn plays the role of an angry colonist in the show. He said he a friend wrote a lot of the material that ended up being used in the play.
“It’s been cool because we get to write our own lines and then we get to use it in a song that we wrote,” he said. “I’m proud of this play because we worked so hard on it. We took a lot of time on it.”
Right now the students are learning about the formation of the 13 British colonies. McMinn said participating in the play is helping him retain the information they are learning.
“There are some rhyming words in there (the songs) and it helps me with answering questions in social studies,” he said.
Mila Moore wrote some of the lyrics to the rap she does during a song about Sullivan’s Island. She said this was her first experience helping to write a song.
“My favorite part of working on the songs was probably when I actually got to rap and sing them because it was fun to actually sing what you wrote,” she said.
Moore said she has enjoyed learning about the Roanoke Colony, also known as the Lost Colony, and its colonists who vanished.
“That was a very interesting story to me – they just disappeared from the island,” she said.
Juliette Christie plays the role of William Jasper, who saved the flag when it fell to the ground during the Battle of Sullivan's Island.
There is a part of the play where the student actors read out “journal entries” describing the jobs their characters had in the colonies. Christie helped in developing some of those monologues, as well as some of the song lyrics in the show.
“I really liked doing the journal entries – that was really fun, because we got to write in ink and we got to make up our own character from colonial times,” she said.
She said she feels confident she will remember what she has learned about colonial America whenever it comes time to take any sort of test on the subject matter.
“Since we did a whole play about it, we had to memorize all these lines, these songs, these raps, these dances – it helps me…log it into my mind, all about social studies and early America,” she said, adding that she really enjoys being on stage. “I’ve enjoyed it…I think it’s really fun when people get to watch a production made by kids because some people think only adults can write shows, but that’s not true. Kids are great actors.”
