The Lighting of a Fire!: Part Fifty-five--The Jane Austen/Charles Dickens Literary Society, part 4

PERSUASION

Major Literary Project

PERSUASION:

Student project: The student creates a thematic curriculum component that can be based on a book or series, or creates a major project on a book or series. The student then presents it to the group. At the beginning of the year we explained this to the students so they could think and gather ideas.

This project gave the students an opportunity to create their own EPIC adventure. This was the rhetoric portion of the year, and their job was to persuade others to want to participate in the EPIC adventure or read their project book.

Writing an EPIC adventure is a huge undertaking, and we thought this would be a great senior project for Autumn and Haley who were graduating.

BOOK BINDER/ENTREPRENEUR

The book binder, Charlene Matthews in Hollywood, gave us a tour of her bindery.

She shared her business and how she hand binds books.

She has bound a variety of books in all sizes.

We spent two and a half hours learning from her.

I loved watching the girls' interest in her work.

Afterwards we went to the Hollywood walk of stars, which even turned out to be thematic in a way. We found David Copperfield's star--the magician, not the fictional Dickens character!

CLOSING DAY

RESEARCH PROJECT PRESENTATIONS

HUNTINGTON GARDENS

REDLANDS SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

In preparation for closing day I made bookplates again for the girls. Instead of Jane Austen's profile, I used each girl's own profile, and instead of making silhouettes the Regency way, we did it the modern way:

I had so much fun making these!

We had the longest closing day ever, as we left our home at 8am and returned at 1am! Our events were held at three venues--Suzanne's, The Huntington, and the Redlands Bowl.

First, each girl presented her Persuasion project.

AUTUMN'S RESEARCH PROJECT

Autumn was thematically dressed as she presented her EPIC Adventure curriculum project. With her theme music playing, she enthusiastically shared her passion and invited us to join her in her exploration school year.

Autumn's Adventure into the Unknown EPIC adventure contained three components with three topics each, and fun kid-grabber names.

Autumn created everything about the adventure except field trips, inquiries, (she wrote some key points and inquiries as required for a senior project), but I don't remember if she wrote all the words to her adventure's song. I do remember that she used the music from the TV series, John Adams, and it was powerful.

Here Autumn is holding her whip from our Etiwanda Jones adventure Tijuana trip!

GISELLE'S RESEARCH PROJECT

Giselle was dressed as a princess as she shared her fairy tale EPIC Adventure for younger children. It was the perfect way to invite us to join her!

Her EPIC Adventure Into the Woods, contained five components and other parts of the curriculum.

Here Giselle is showing her curriculum mind map and answering questions. It was fun to she her follow her passion in the theme she chose. She also had theme song music, but I don't remember about lyrics.

After all the students shared their projects, everyone got ready for our tea. Suzanne Polly catered and served our tea and it was amazing. I have been to several teas at restaurants, but hers was the best I have ever tasted, and had the most variety too.

Tussie-mussie flowers from my garden hung on branches in the center of our table.

Everything was yummy!

Karen and Steve were there to enjoy and help document our day, and Karen loved everything of course!

Our last tea of the year was the best!!

After tea we continued with a closing day of school tradition--sharing a momento with each person or family. I suppose this is equivalent to signing a yearbook, but more fun!

The tussie-mussie roses were my closing day gift, along with a little guide to the language of flowers. Here's mine in my journal of discovery--on the left, and opened below. Also, my Mr. Pickwick place card for our tea. Everyone's place cards had their pen names.

I displayed each student's silhouette, and each were given a packet of personalized bookplates.

The most important part of our closing day was over. On to the next!

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY AND GARDENS

Our adventure began and ended here. The girls wore their Regency dresses to end the year. We walked down the long gravel driveway to the mausoleum, which no longer exists as an entrance. I asked the girls to stop so I could take this amazing Austen-ish photo.

We came to the mausoleum because it's my favorite, and to do one last writing exercise together. We were silent as we each wrote things that we cherished from the year--learning, experiences, friendships, etc.

Afterwards we went around the circle to allow everyone a chance to share something about the year.

Then we took an abundance of photos as we walked the gardens one last time together. Here are just a very few--

The fountain!

The bench in the rose garden where the year began. From here we went to our next adventure!

REDLANDS SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

Our family planned to attend the festival anyway, so we invited our group to join us at one of our traditions since the Shakespeare school year. After changing, and going to Trader Jo's, we went to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Redlands Bowl.