History from a personal perspective

Although the students of Conway High School are always able to jump into the events and eras of the past during history class, the students took it a step further in Di Baldwin's class Monday.

Baldwin teaches an oral communications class for concurrent credit with the University of Central Arkansas and last week she asked her students to take a glimpse into the past and then bring it to the classroom.

Students were decked out in costumes representing historic characters, all the way from Prometheus to Pocahontas. Each student was given an opportunity to explain her life struggles and how she impacted history.

Lauren Pinney, one of the four girls who presented Monday, said she and her classmates were very pleased with working on Baldwin's assignment.

"I liked it because we got to learn a little piece of history from everyone's character and it's better than history class because there we just study certain times, not individuals," Pinney, a senior, said. "A lot of things in history happened because of just one person and we're seeing that now."

Pinney portrayed Jane Austen on Monday and spoke of her successes, despite the fact that she wrote her world-famous novels during a time when women's work was rarely recognized. Pinney said because Austen, who was born in 1775, lived during that era, coming up with information was difficult.

"A lot of her family destroyed most of the records she wrote, but her brother ending up publishing one of her journals and I got a lot of information from that," Pinney said.

Senior Dana Redding also had a bit of trouble finding something to say to her classmates, as her little piece of history was presented as a female observer of the first Olympics in 776 B.C.

"It was definitely a challenge to work on," Redding said. "There is nothing on the Greek Olympics because of the big time period when there were no games."

Redding said she chose to don a toga Monday because was always interested in the days of Ancient Greece and the choice to live as Austen for a day came easy to Pinney, as she has always been a fan of her work.

"We had to read 'Pride and Prejudice' in the ninth-grade, and I really didn't appreciate it at the time," Pinney said. "But I recently read it again just for kicks and I really got into it."

It took a little work for junior Valerie Seefeld to get her historic character approved by Baldwin, however. The assignment was to relive a real event in history as one of the main characters; however, Seefeld chose Prometheus, a mythological being who inhabited the Earth before man.

Seefeld said she was working on a project about him for another class and was fascinated with everything about him.

"I've always liked mythology so I was glad to get to learn about Promethesus and it's very interesting to see how all of the stories play out," Seefeld said.

Hannah Henderson, another senior, said her own heritage was the reason she chose to tell the tale of Pocahontas and the way she brought together the Native Americans and the Christians from overseas.

"I am part Native American, and I just love Pocahontas and her native heritage so it was fun to get to learn more about it and share it with everybody," Henderson said.

After the four finished presenting their work Monday, Baldwin said she was pleased with the way the debut of the new assignment turned out. She said she thought the speakers were "wonderful" and the benefit of the project was obvious.

"The project was two-fold because it challenges them in respect to their creativity and research skills and their public speaking," Henderson said. "Those are two points that go hand-in-hand, and I can tell they learned from one another and I was very impressed with that."

(Staff writer Jessica Bauer can be reached by e-mail at jessica.bauer@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1236. To comment on this and other stories in the Log Cabin, log on to www.thecabin.net. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)