( left to right) top row — Amanda Grainger, Sarah Nickles, Anna Howell
bottom row — Brayer Cheezem, Allison Brown, Carin Nickles

Sparks Of Creativity Fly In Erskine Children's Literature Class

If you want to be a good teacher these days, you'd better know how to handle your puppet.

When Erskine College students majoring in education sign up for Education 406, Dr. Mike McKenzie's Children's Literature class, they are preparing for the serious business of teaching "critical reading, language arts, and children's literature in heterogeneous classrooms in the elementary grades," according to the course syllabus.

In the 21st-century world of teacher accreditation standards, professors of education address a plethora of requirements designed to ensure that students become good teachers.

So McKenzie works hard, and his students work hard, but as his classroom display of student projects illustrates, hard work need not dampen the creative spark necessary for effective teaching.

Which explains why McKenzie's students are having so much fun posing with their puppet creations.

In this class, education students learn how stories can take center stage in the classroom, offering a teacher ways of helping elementary school students with communication, reading comprehension, and critical thinking skills.

The course requires students to take six tests and a comprehensive final exam; prepare a file of children's literature based on reading 55 books and viewing five videos; and read and respond critically to 10 articles on the topic of children's literature. And besides all that, there are the projects. How much time do the projects – and there are several– take to finish?

According to junior Brayer Cheezem of Mullins, "All of the projects took a lot of time to complete."

Junior Amanda Grainger of Moncks Corner said she estimated the puppet she created took about five or six hours of work.

"That's about the time I spend preparing for one class session," said McKenzie with a smile. He expects a lot of himself and of his students, but they have fun too."

McKenzie is proud of his students' creativity. "Some of these are exquisite," he says as he points out features of felt boards, student-authored books, and puppets.

"I chose to make an ostrich puppet," said Cheezem, adding that it was the most difficult of all the projects she had to do. "It took me about eight hours. But I really enjoyed seeing the puppet when it was done, and I know it is something I will be able to use in the classroom."

Some students modeled their puppets after characters in children's books they have read in the course, and an obvious use for the puppets is in storytelling. Also used in storytelling are felt boards, which can also be used in classroom centers. "Children can manipulate the pieces to retell the story or sequence events," said Cheezem.

For aspiring teachers, the elementary school version of crowd control is a potential challenge, even in a small class. Cheezem and her classmates believe they can meet that challenge.

"I plan to use the puppet for classroom management," Cheezem said. "I will ask the children what noise ostriches make. The answer is, ostriches don’t make a lot of sound, so when I hold up the ostrich, the children will know it’s quiet time. It’s just a fun way to manage the classroom."

Puppet from the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"
created by Natalie Stoner

Mr. Toad puppet from the book "The Wind in the Willows"
created by Amander Grainger