~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2012-13 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~
On Wednesday, February 7th, Ms. Jubic hosted a
Renaissance Fair in the library. The students from Jubic's College English 12
class put together an event for the rest of the students and faculty to come
and enjoy throughout the day. The presenting students were stationed in the
library throughout the entire school day, and any students with permitting
teachers could head down and enjoy the event. I was one of those students, and
spent two periods there. The fair was far from unenjoyable, thanks to the
intrinsic pleasure of games and food and socializing with peers, but redundant,
and sometimes irrelevant information, as well as a general sense of apathy from
some students brought it down.
After talking with Ms. Jubic, I learned that this is
the first year that she has done this event, and that it is meant to coincide
with the students' reading of Macbeth and Renaissance poetry. The event covered
music, food, sports and art. I talked to student 12th Grade Student Joe Smith
at the event, and he told me that the students got into groups and were
assigned a topic at random. Once given that topic, Joe continued to tell me,
students could focus on whatever subtopics they wished. Joe told me that his
group spent about a week on their presentation.
One of the problems with the event stems from the
fact that many groups covered the same information. Instead of collaborating
together, most groups seemed to tackle their topic [sports, food, etc.] in a
very general sense. Because of this, I learned about jousting more times than I
would have liked, for example. The information seemed to bleed together, and
sometimes didn't really fit. Food found its way on presentations that weren't
even about food and Bruno Mars music blared for no apparent reason. Some
presenting students also seemed to not care so much, and resorted to hiding
behind their stands.
It was hard not to enjoy yourself in some fashion,
though. Alan Howard and Mike Rizzo told me about bicycle jousting, which is the
equivalent of Renaissance jousting, and joked[?] that they do it themselves.
Billy Balsley's stand offered face-painting, and I was surprised to hear that a
lot of people actually obliged to the offer after asking him. Trey Martin's
food stand may have been the best, offering cinnamon rolls and chicken that
lots of people had positive things to say about. Over at a sports stand operated by Dan Hess
and other students, I popped balloons in a dart game and won an apple tart.
The general opinion on the event seemed mixed, from
what I picked up on. More than a few students told me that they found the event
boring. I did hear a lot of good things about the food, and it certainly wasn't
hard to find smiling and laughing at the event. Ms. Jubic told me "I think
everyone's been enjoying themselves." I'd say it was fine.
No comments:
Post a Comment