Utah class tracks 150 years of railroad history
Students in Kayse Fernandes’ fourth-grade class used to ignore the railroad tracks that run next to the freeway and along the outskirts of their city. If they did think about them, they figured they were just an old-fashioned way to get from one place to another.
But after researching, writing and illustrating a graphic novel about the colossal effort it took to build the nation’s first railroad to link the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, these kids at Horace Mann Elementary in Utah are bursting with information and awe.
They can tell you who paid for the railroads and how laborers used gunpowder to blast through mountains inch by inch, losing body parts and lives in the process.
“It inspired me to support and protect the railroad,” said Keegan Barney, who is 10. “This railroad took six years to build. Men worked hard. They died for it. And some people are going to go spraypainting this (railroad), doing graffiti on this? ... I mean seriously.”
Eight fourth-grade classes were chosen to make graphic novels as part of a major celebration in Utah to mark the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
The state happened to be where Central Pacific and Union Pacific crews joined their separate rail lines on May 10, 1869. And Utah is hosting something like a birthday party, with festivals, re-enactments and train demonstrations, at Golden Spike National Historical Park.
Students at Horace Mann spent weeks researching how the railroad companies raced each other to the finish line, deciding what story to tell, drawing panels and writing the words.
The students said they had fun — and learned more — by creating a graphic novel instead of writing a report on their own.
“You had to have your own thoughts of how to do the certain pages,” said Marley Pitcher, 9. “You can be more creative with all of your thinking.”
Just as the railroad companies competed, the class split in half while working on the book, with each side representing one of the companies. A line taped in the middle of the classroom divided the groups, and students needed tickets to cross to the other side. Art teacher Brent Rhodes worked with them on how to draw facial expressions, action and emotion in pencil, marker and ink.
“You could feel the joy in the classroom,” said Jake Wilson, 10. “Everyone was excited. It would be math time, and we’d all be waiting to learn about the Transcontinental Railroad.”