If you were to walk into any of Ms. Contino’s English classes last week, you would have taken a trip back to the roaring nineteen-twenties.
The classes just finished reading The Great Gatsby, and to celebrate, Ms. Contino threw extravagant parties for each class.
Student’s dressed in costumes that reflected the time period and brought in props such as fake cigars, baseball bats from “the mafia”, and tasty treats that were popular in the nineteen-twenties for the classes to enjoy.
Each class period typically started out with students who could sing or play an instrument performing a jazz piece.
After that, a group of two or three students would stand up and demonstrate the fads and highlights of the nineteen-twenties. Some did this by performing skits, others played games, and some even went as far as to make tabloids that would be relevant during that time period.
You could see as students each got up to speak about their topic, that this wasn’t just another monotone “read-it-as-quickly-as-possible-so-I-can-sit-down-already” PowerPoint slideshow. Each and every student stood up and seemed excited about the information they were sharing.
This unique way of reviewing what the students have learned during the reading seemed to work pretty well, if I do say so myself. From the sparkling grape juice and lemon bars, to trying to swallow “goldfish” as a dare (don’t worry, they were only candied gummy fish), to the skits about bootleggers and the mafia, Ms. Contino’s classrooms all took Throwback Thursday to a new level.
Student Publication of Oswego High School, Oswego, IL
