Puppetry in Practice (PIP) became part of the Waterways Project's Empire State
Partnership effort to engage students reading below first grade
level. PIP is directed by Dr. G. Tova Ackerman and based at Brooklyn
College. Frederick Douglass students met with Hector Henry, a puppeteer from PIP, at Brooklyn College and at the Frederick Douglass Literacy Center in Bed/Stuy. By creating puppets to perform poems from Streams, the students in Roslyn Kaye's presented a puppet performance.
Their first performance before more than 200 Head Start children was on January 8, 1998 in Manhattan. The students and their teacher, Ms. Kaye (along with Mr. Kaye), took the train to Manhattan bringing their puppets with them. Mr. Henry arrived with the puppet stage at East 34th Street in the shadow of the Empire State Building. The students unloaded, carried and assembled the stage, rehearsed their performance, and at approximately eleven a.m. the audience of Head Start children and their parents crowded into the auditorium for the gala performance.
Students addressed the first New York State Learning Standard for the Arts: Creating, Performing and Participating in the Arts. They read from Streams, discussed poetry and selected a poem for their puppet show. They created their puppets, rehearsed and performed. The second ( Knowing and Using Arts Materials and Resources) and fourth (Understanding the Cultural Dimensions and Contributions of the Arts) Learning Standards in the Arts were addressed as students developed costumes and sets for their puppet performances. The first standard for Career Development and Occupational Studies was addressed as students explored puppetry as a career. The second New York State Learning Standard for English involving literary response and expression was also addressed as students took part in poetry performances, and created original poems for future puppet presentations.
