(05/12/2023) Fourth grade students from Lincoln Elementary School for the Arts took a walking field trip across 5th Avenue to Anoka Middle School for the Arts (AMSA) on Wednesday, May 10 to see their narrative fiction stories come to life. 

Lincoln Elementary students were provided with pictures and prompts to create a story and the finished products, which ranged from three sentences to three pages, were handed over to seventh and eighth graders in the ​​Theater Arts III class at AMSA. Middle school students had about three hours of class time to read the stories, write scripts, and decide on costumes and props to adapt the story to the stage. View photos from the collaboration.

The AMSA students selected five stories to perform:

“Andy the Hero,” by Leemeng Chang
“Jonny K Marvin,” by Edwyn Louden
“Dogs of the Wilderness,” by Wyatt Schmidt
“Team Explorers,” by Norah DeBiaso
“Princess, Bad, Maze,” by Emily Anderson

At Lincoln, theatre arts is embedded into student learning through strategies like Readers Theatre, creative writing and storytelling, and theatrical voice and movement exploration. Students have the opportunity to hone their skills by anchoring the school’s morning announcements, and by participating in the after-school theatre performance program. 

Watch the video to learn more about the collaboration and see the stories in action.