Heroes in all shapes and sizes

above: a last-minute editorial meeting as the sixth grade newspaper staff reviews the submissions for this week's art competition. 

 

The sixth grade newspaper has been running weekly art contests.

 

This week's theme was "Superheroes" in honor of this year's Karla Harry Visiting Authors Kwame Mbalia and Eric Wilkerson.

 

The superhero world was one of their many inspirations when they collaborated on the bestselling Tristan Strong Saves the World.

 

For the newspaper, Gordon students came up with Taco Man, Weather Girl, Jet Pack Girl, Baby Face Poison Ivy, The Transformer Flyer, Giraffe-chicken-fish-sasquatch-cat-human and a number of villainous-looking pumpkin-heads.

 

For their workshops with Mbalia and Wilkerson, students came up with questions and ideas from every direction.

 

Mbalia's writing workshops included a frank dialogue about narrative structure with the seventh graders, who are working their way through their first drafts of their first novels.

 

Wilkerson's drawing sessions with students have been hands-on adventures in character creation, visual storytelling, and the value of imagination.

 

Tomorrow, the pair will collaborate again in a conversation led by Head of School Noni Thomas López, broadcast over Zoom for the adults in the Gordon community. 

 

For more on tomorrow's conversation, see www.gordonschool.org/mbaliawilkerson

 

For more on the wonders lurking in the imaginations of Gordon students, ask a sixth grader for a copy of the newspaper.

 

above: Mbalia and Wilkerson's visit also inspired these three-dimensional superheroes, created by seventh and eighth graders