Knots: Tell Your Story…do knot miss it

Libby McCarthy, News Writer|February 18, 2016

Mrs. Chandler ties knots in preparation for the storytelling event today in the community room at 5 p.m.

On Thursday, Feb. 18, Knots: Tell Your Story, a storytelling competition in which 10 finalists from grades freshmen to senior present their own story surrounding the theme of knots, will take place in the community room at 5 p.m.

“We came up with a long list of words that have a lot of different meanings and can be taken a lot of different ways, so one of the words Mr. Lange came up with was knots,” said Mr. Bhatti, English teacher. “We really liked the idea of it, to be able to take it literally and that figurative part of it too; we thought that it would give students a lot of opportunity to play around with it.”

This is the second year the school has participated in this competition, last year’s theme was waves. English teachers, Ms. Saunders, Mr. Bhatti, Mrs. Chandler and Ms. Corelitz, created the competition in order to showcase students’ voices.

“The rationale [for starting the competition] was to get other kids’ voices represented besides the kids that are annually published…to kind of tap into some of the other voices that are, perhaps, not heard as often,” Mrs. Chandler said.

Submissions for Knots was in December and since then the finalists have been preparing to share their essays to other students and community members.

“My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 and when I found out the word was knots, I associated it with hair,” said Knots finalist Grace Hafner, sophomore. “I have a few edits to finalize and I reread the piece to make sure I’m happy with how it sounds.”

To hear stories from other students, come to the knots presentation at 5 p.m. in the community room. The room itself will be converted into a coffee house atmosphere with a live performance by professional musicians Gia and Alain.

“You’ll leave feeling something,” Mr. Bhatti said.