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Into the wilds
By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE CRYSTAL RIVER -- Jonas Majersky and his high school juniors gathered last week for a writing assignment in a most unlikely setting. The Academy of Environmental Science English III class spent most of the day at the Crystal River Archaeological State Park. As the students listened to park ranger Susan "Miss Sue" Clemons give animated descriptions and explanations of life long ago, they realized that the more archaeologists learn, the more questions they uncover. This was Majersky's basis for an imaginative-writing lesson. The students are studying unwritten literature, or storytelling. "I thought it would be good to come out and see the local history," Majersky said. "Plus, the place has so many questions, I thought it would be a good writing assignment." The morning was clear and cool as the students sat at the top of the temple mound. The Salt River sparkled behind them in the early sun. It seemed a perfect place to inspire young writers. Majersky briefly regretted coming to the park by bus. The school, he said, is only about a mile from the park by water. They could have come by canoe. Perhaps they could do that later for another project. Clemons tried to impress on the students how she and the archaeologists she works with are always finding new ideas, sometimes from the most unlikely sources. She gave the example of a fourth grade boy, visiting with his class, who was on the temple mound when Clemons told them about its possible religious significance. He suggested that perhaps because he had been sent to his church for a hurricane evacuation, the temple was the church the ancient people went to during storms. Clemons said it had not occurred to her that the mound might have been a refuge during disasters. It took a fourth-grader's observation. Later they came to another, much lower, temple mound. A first-grader, she told the juniors, suggested there were two mounds so the Democrats could have one and the Republicans, the other. Well, they probably weren't Republicans and Democrats, but, Clemons said, it did take the insight of a first-grader to make her consider the possibility that dissension led to the second mound. As the students listened to all the possibilities for interpretations and questions, they began to formulate their own ides for writing about the mysterious, ancient site. Alyssa Evagash, 17, explained that her class had read stories about people in ancient times, "and we have to make up a story in one of these cases." She thought she would write about the solar stone, which ancient people apparently used to determine the times of the summer and winter solstices. "It's amazing how it's still so accurate. It's neat." Christen Haffkoss, 16, was more interested in carbon dating, the method scientists use to determine the ages of carbon-based materials. She thought she might write about "weird stuff, like how they got here." Heather Barfield, 16, was impressed by Clemon's stories about burials and the ancient way of life. She thought she'd focus on "how people were buried and how we still have a lot of unanswered questions about ancient people and how their lives revolved around their resources like ours are today." Religious practices intrigued James Dill, 17. "I think I'm going to write about how religion and culture tied in together," he said.
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