On February 7, Ms. Spencer’s Senior Lit class remade Frankenstein’s monster with cake and other food products. The class reads many books throughout the year such as Unwind, Macbeth, Frankenstein and 1984.  Aiden Shemanski (12) enjoys what they do in the class “Hanging out with your friends because everyone is usually involved and there’s a lot of communication, the whole class in general is fun especially the hands-on activities.” Another student, Jillian Pratt (12), said, “I just learn better this way, by doing group work and activities. We do group projects, just a lot of fun engaging things.” The class takes a look at modern novels as well as older novels, where they analyze the themes and other symbols within the book. Skills, projects, and other methods such as letting the students have fun and do creative acitivies help the students enjoy the class. At the end of their Frankenstein unit, they make a to scale version of Frankenstein with various foods. 

The tradition started by Ms. Spencer originated 27 years ago at a different school, where they would make the replica out of cloth. Ms. Spencer explained how it changed from cloth to the food it is made with today “When I first started doing him here, we built him out of chicken wire and wood and they made actually a Frankenstein monster, but one year they asked if we could build him out of cake and we’ve done it ever since.” The idea of making it out of cake and food is also fun for Ms. Spencer as she explained “We always do it in February to kind of celebrate my birthday because my birthday is later in the month, so yeah, cake.” Using food helps the students work together, as different groups of students have the job of making or bringing certain foods. Many like to make food for the activity Jillian Pratt (12) said “I spent around 4 hours making rice crispy treats, and we’re all just excited to eat the food.” Carter Wyeth (12) helped make an outline “A couple students including me, had to stay after class and drew the whole thing out,” he said. “The planning part, although the most stressful, was still the most fun to coordinate that and it was nice watching it come together.” The class has to meet the exact requirements in length of all the body parts or they get a 0, if it is not accurate. After the students use up all of their time making the monster, it is measured to see if they met all the requirements. Once it is measured, students are allowed to eat the monster and enjoy the food they brought in. Whatever is not eaten from the original students, Ms. Spencer lets other classes come in and grab some food to enjoy as well.