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Chaney students work to publish book
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
Forty Chaney sixth- graders will have their literary and art talents published in a book next year.
It’s called Project LEAF — Literacy, Environment, Art and Friendship — at Mill Creek MetroParks’ Fellows Riverside Gardens.
The sixth-graders at the Visual and Performing Arts and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math school first toured the gardens, said Anita Wesler, Fellows horticulture educator.
“They planted bulbs in the family garden so they have some ownership,” she said.
They used their five senses to take it all in and shot video of what they saw. Then they wrote down what they saw.
“We wrote the colors,” said Dajanae Bankston, 11.
“And textures,” added Yeliza Martinez, 11.
The students worked with Dar Hosta, an award- winning author and illustrator, to compose poems about their experience and created a collage. Hosta was a guest author at the MetroParks’ Book Festival in 2009.
She’ll incorporate the students’ art and literary creations into a book that will be sold at Fellows. An opening-night is planned April 26 and the students’ work will be displayed at the gallery. A performance piece will be presented that evening, and the exhibit will travel to different schools across the city.
Nyiesha Moore, 11, likes the idea of exercising her creativity and having it included in a book.
“It’s important to me,” she said. “I never did anything like this before ... I’ve never experienced this in my life — doing an author’s job.”
LaRayja Hill, 11, agreed.
“The book is special to me,” she said. “I got to see what it’s like to be an author and an illustrator.”
Tracy Schuler-Vivo, Chaney VPA coordinator, said students also are working to create a Shakespeare Garden in the school’s courtyard with a mural.
For some of the students, the garden tour marked their first visit to Fellows.
“I didn’t even know it was there,” said Kevontae Thomas, 11.
Marquasha Harris, 12, said the “cotton-candy tree” was her favorite part of the visit.
Wesler explained that it’s the katsura tree that smells like cotton candy.
LaRayja enjoyed the the orange and yellow leaves on the trees reflecting off of the river from the terrace.
Other students mentioned the view of the city from the other terrace at the garden, caterpillars, the weeping beech tree and the flowers.
The project was funded by the Friends of Fellows Riverside Gardens, Mill Creek Park Foundation, the city schools and private donors. The project will become self-sustaining through sale of the book.