During the leadup to the 41st Warren Baird Symposium featuring renowned author Ibi Zoboi, KO students in their various English classes worked to create passion projects reflecting the many themes in Ms. Zoboi’s books, including “Nigeria Jones,” “American Street,” “Punching the Air,” and “Pride.”
The students in the Symposium class worked to reflect on multiple books in their passion projects while other students focused specifically on the books they read and analyzed in their English classes. Some of the many passion projects were creative writing, posters, games, videos, podcasts, artwork, collages, and music.
Seniors Ashley Buckingham and Ava Cashman asked the community one question: “What words of gratitude would you extend to Ibi Zoboi?” They created a video that included diverse perspectives to show the interdisciplinary components of Ms. Zoboi’s books. “We wanted to highlight the impact of Ibi Zoboi’s work felt around the KO campus,” Ashley said.
Sophomore Lia Prahl created a board game to highlight the difficulties immigrants face assimilating into a new society. She explored the ideas of how religion helps the protagonist, Fabiola, in “American Street.” “A board game was creative for me,” Lia said. “It was a fun project to make, and I have always liked making games. The novel explores Fabiola’s faith in Haitian Vodou and the various lwas associated with it, so Lia’s game contained certain lwa paths.
Sophomore Miles Gruber created a YouTube video exploring the idea of religion through “God of War,” a game that brought religion to the forefront and connected it to the Haitian Vodou presented in “American Street.’ “The presentation of the Haitian Gods inspired me to do something I’ve wanted to do for a while,” Miles said. “The book gave me clarity.” Miles’ videos tackle Greek gods and Norse mythology which aren’t represented too well in modern media.
Finally, seniors Emma Barringer and Audrey Karasik put together a collage to represent multiple ideas portrayed in Ms. Zoboi’s books. “We knew that we wanted to do something that crossed the boundaries of any one medium, as that is one of the hallmarks of Zoboi’s writing,” Emma said. While looking through the lenses of multiple books, they noticed a common theme present in many of Ms. Zoboi’s works, Individuality vs Community. They focused on the books “Pride,” “Punching the Air,” “American Street,” and “Nigeria Jones” in their project, using quotes from these books with creativity and creative color schemes. “We wanted to use textual evidence as well as a metaphorical presentation of our thoughts in this project,” Audrey said. “We used that to give a multifaceted analysis of our ideas and theme and to tie the project together.” Their work celebrates Ms. Zoboi by connecting the community and deepening the understanding of relationships, another key theme presented in Ms. Zoboi’s books.
The passion projects created by all students used their interpretations of Ms. Zoboi’s novels and brought them to life in creative ways, showing the inspiration of Ms. Zoboi’s works among the KO community.
