Northwoods Community Secondary School, Rhinelander.
Teacher: Kristin Larsen, 6th grade
During the 2004-05 school year, my 6th grade charter school class attempted to plan and execute a cultural tour of Rhinelander. We made our list of possible stops, accepting all ideas. Then we organized our list based on these big categories:
« Festivals/events
« Businesses/buildings
« Outside/nature
« People
« Historical places
We narrowed it down based on what places sounded most interesting with emphasis on these questions:
« What places can people get to without tour guides?
« What places are unique to Rhinelander?
« What would your dream tour include? Why?
Then we organized that list focusing on the cultural elements and genres.
Then we did some reconnaissance work and visited three possible stops: Matt’s Frame Shop, Fort Wilderness, and Mr. Willging, a local author and DNR expert. We tape recorded interviews with these people and obtained permission to use the recorded materials. We evaluated these three based on the following criteria:
« Were the speakers good talkers?
« Did they have good stories?
« Were they good listeners?
« Did they have rich local knowledge?
« Is there enough room in the physical space?
« Does the stop have a connection to place? What is it?
« Is it interesting to visitors? How?
« Can we get there easily?
We finalized our list and each student chose a stop with which to become familiar so they could introduce and talk about it. They focused on the following questions:
« What is the heart of what you want to show?
« What do we want to draw out of each stop?
« Is the list balanced based on the Cultural Elements?
Our final tour included:
« Sand Creek Consultants: Phytoreclamation
« Matt’s Frame Shop: Custom framing/farming
« Fort Wilderness: A family owned camp and recreation center
« Hodag Park: A gathering place in the center of town
We ended up having to cancel the tour due to low registration
