Upper School English Teacher Dan Sadicario noticed the apple trees outside of Olson were bursting with fruit. He had an idea: what if he could incorporate the apples into his classroom experience? His students had been reading a collection of passages from Loren Eisley’s writings about various experiences with nature. Eisley’s work often tries to understand the perspective of an animal or nature or “the universe itself.”
“There is one piece called The Hidden Teacher about his attempt to understand the perspective of a spider,” said Sadicario. “To help students understand the piece, before reading it, we collected some apples and then, with a partner, examined the apple for signs of insects.” Students then told a three-to-six sentence story about what that insect might have been experiencing before, during, and after its journey to find food. “After collecting the apples, writing the stories, and some of the students taking a few bites, we read the text and could appreciate the artful and heavy ideas Eisley was trying to capture,” he said.
“The main reason we did this (at the ‘core,’ you could say!) is to address the most important part of reading stories, which is to actually see the world from another’s perspective,” explained Sadicario. “It sounds cliche and thus easy, but it’s very hard to do. Try picturing what life even looks like to be that small thing standing on the skin of a giant apple! The students had fun but really struggled with that part when it came down to it.” The exercise busted students out of the confines of a classroom and brought a tactical sensation to their learning experience, all of which helped them engage their brains in new ways and stretch their imaginations.
MICDS students have been enjoying the apples for a few weeks now, and many of the lower branches have been picked clean. Sadicario’s students were in luck: he has an apple picker because he used to grow apple trees around his old house.
What a creative way to dive into literature. Way to go, bookworms!