Writing history

continued from page 10 school counterparts, the high schoolers came up with stories based on the fourthgrade history textbook—some more concrete, and others more allegorical—while the fourth graders drew pictures to represent each step of the story.

“At first it was a little bit weird because when we first joined the Google Meet call there was one kid that would talk and the others were hiding,” Ellison Taliaferro, a senior, said describing some of the challenges of meeting with her group online. “A lot of it was you starting the conversation at first and asking them questions, but then they got more comfortable and started talking … but it was stressful figuring out how to get them to talk.”

Each group took different methods to convert the textbook chapter into a history story. One group told the story from the perspective of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison’s quills, while another group used ducks and geese to describe the story behind the Declaration of Independence.

After developing rough drafts of all the chapters, the Loudoun County High School students took a field trip to visit the fourth-grade classes at Evergreen Mill. They spent time working hard at editing their chapters in groups and competing in an online history quiz game called Blooket, but also playing together outside during recess and enjoying ice cream at lunch.

“It was a lot harder than I thought,” high school senior Sofie Steel said about playing Blooket with fourth grader Hudson Reilly. “He ended up giving me the job to just look at the board and tell him if he