Design a Whirligig!

My English 10 students are reading Whirligig by Paul Fleischman. In the text, Brent kills a young girl named Lea when he is driving drunk. He then travels around the country and makes whirligigs in memory of his victim.

The prompt: Design a whirligig to memorialize, celebrate, and/or commemorate a person who has influenced you.

Requirements:

• Must be 3-dimensional

• Must have a part that will spin in the wind

• Must be colorful

• Must represent the person

• Can be any size

• Can use any material – wood, cardboard, recycled materials, paper, etc.

I decided to make my whirligig in honor of my friend, Cassi Ann Ricks. Some people call her Cassandra. She has been on my mind recently because she moved to Colorado for grad school and I miss her face. On the stem of the whirligig are maps and flowers and images of Africa. I admire Cassi a great deal because she loves to travel, dares to travel, and finds ways to serve people from all walks of life. I have glued the cardinal directions to each spoke of the whirligig in order to represent the fact that Cassi is often going in a lot of directions but regardless of where she ends up I have no doubt that it will be somewhere lovely.

She has influenced my life because she has loved me unconditionally, without hesitation. When I have been crazy and strange and tragic she has let me and loved me still. She has been on great adventures with me, offered favors that are beyond the bound of friendship, and inspired me with her frank goodness.