Ellinwood Middle and High School staff are using pop-culture to promote community and literacy throughout their school as they plan their first Hunger Games Day for Wednesday, March 28.
This day will begin with all students and staff heading to Village 3 Cinemas in Great Bend to view the movie, then returning to the high school for activities themed after the best-selling novel.
Principal Shawn Henderson has divided the entire student body into twelve districts with teachers assigned as mentors for each group of middle and high school students. These districts will compete in cross-curricular activities throughout the afternoon, with the winning district earning a day off of school to travel to Wichita to see The Hunger Games again in IMAX.
Another crucial part of the afternoon’s activities is a “reaping” similar to the one in the book, during which one boy and one girl from each district will be chosen to compete in the final activity of Hunger Games Day, a game on the high school football field with only one victor. In contrast to the reaping in the book and movie, however, students are trying to increase their odds of being chosen to represent their district in this event by donating items to the “Tesserae” food drive. Hunger Games Day has also become a way to create this largest food drive in Ellinwood High School history.
Preparations for this epic day continued as the students and staff were on spring break, and students had one last chance to participate in the Tesserae drive on Monday, March 26, when they returned from break.