Evergreen Park students perform at Minnesota Children’s Theatre
(05/30/19) A group of students in grades three through five at Evergreen Park World Cultures Community School recently performed at the Children’s Theatre in Minneapolis. The group performed A Greedy Family Who Lived in a Shoe, a play which was adapted and written by the students.
The students spent two hours each Wednesday afternoons since September working toward their goal of performing at the Children’s Theatre in May, thanks to a partnership with the Neighborhood Bridges Program. Neighborhood Bridges is a nationally recognized literacy program using storytelling and creative drama to help children develop their critical literacy skills and to transform them into storytellers of their own lives.
The program gives students the opportunity to choose, adapt, write, and perform a play. They perform twice during the year, with the culminating show at the Children’s Theatre. This year, the students chose The Vinegar Bottle to rewrite and created A Greedy Family Who Lived in a Shoe. Watch the performance.
During their weekly meetings, students grew in confidence, questioning skills, performance skills, and storytelling through creative writing. Students also learned how to become more detailed and descriptive in their writing throughout the school year.
“One of the things I am most proud of is how seriously they took this opportunity,” said Vanessa Wood, curriculum integrator and Neighborhood Bridges coordinator at Evergreen Park. “The looks on their faces when they went backstage for the first time at the Children’s Theatre was priceless. Most importantly, they were proud of themselves and were intrinsically motivated to do their best and provided an exceptional performance.”
The program places an emphasis on the oral retelling of a play, so rather than just being read, students retold, unpacked the stories, and thought critically about them while performing in small groups. Students were then challenged to create a scene from one of the stories, adjusting it to their liking and acting it out.
“It is important that we teach students to think critically about all stories they are told,” Wood said. “And to give them the power to question or change the narrative, giving them the power and opportunity to be the writers of their own stories. We can only hope that this program empowers them in that way.”
Evergreen Park students stole the show with their performance at the Children’s Theatre.