I chose to have my 7th/8th grade class read The Little Prince because it is beautiful and has the potential to change one's view on the world. One of my girls told me that after reading it, she'd never look at the sky the same way.
I asked my class to choose a part of the book that for them scored an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the most beautiful section for them), and told them to create an artistic representation of that text. At first, like with all new things and teenagers, they hemmed and hawed and didn't think they could do it. Granted, it took a bit of a stern talk about pushing themselves and not just getting stuck where they are now before they truly took off with it.
Today they presented. We had drawings and paintings, but my favorite was from the same girl who said she'd never look at the sky the same way again. She and her father have a ritual of taking pictures of the sunrise each morning and sharing them with one another. She explained that that ritual makes the sunrise special to them. The part she chose in the book is where the Little Prince discovers a rose garden and finds that the flower he loves on his planet is not the only one in the universe. That moment he begins to realize, after some education by a fox who wanted training, that even though his flower was not actually the only one in all the universe that she was special because he loved her and cared for her. For my student, her sunrises are the same. She said that we know the sun will rise each day, but we don't know what it will look like. For several days she made sure to take her sunrise pictures facing approximately the same spot to help illuminate her point. Her pictures tell the story. Like the prince, we don't always realize how special the sunrise is or the little things that we labor to keep going are, but when it finally dawns on us (no pun intended) we know that even though everyone else can see it too (or like the rose there are many) it is special because it is part of a ritual in our lives.
Here are the sunrises she shared with us today in class, they are each from a different day and are in no particular order (the last is my favorite):
As she shared we all remarked at how amazing her photos are of the sunrises we don't always stop to enjoy. We, like the Little Prince, have taken things for granted much like he did his rose. We know the sunrises will be there, but shouldn't we stop and enjoy them on occasion.
This student has not had the creativity trained out of her, and she can see past the standardized tests and into the beauty of the world around her and the rituals that make her life special. How can you help your students to find creativity and joy in their learning process?
