Ansbach MHS Celebrates Read Across America Week with Hands-On Activities
Ansbach Middle High School students dove celebrated Read Across America through a series of hands-on literacy workshops.
Ansbach MHS Librarian Meghann Parry teamed up with the Language Arts department to lead students in grades 6–12 through two unique projects: the modern "Blackout Poetry" and the nostalgic art of hand-making book covers.
Students in Language Arts classrooms transformed existing texts (pages from novels they studied in their classes) into "found poetry." Rather than writing from scratch, students "discovered" hidden messages within pages of classic and contemporary novels. By selectively masking words with ink or original illustrations, they revealed standalone poems that offered entirely new meanings to the original text.
The celebration also looked to the past as students mastered the once-standard skill of covering novels with commissary paper bags. After wrapping their books, students designed custom covers featuring pivotal quotes and symbolic imagery as clues to the novel's title. The project concluded with an interactive display, challenging peers and community members to identify the famous novels based solely on the students' artistic clues.
