Warren school kids rock out
Toolbox
By MARY GOW Correspondent - Published: December 28, 2009
WARREN — Not many 9- and 10-year-olds write for rock bands. Even fewer have their writing performed. A group of third- and fourth-grade students of Warren Elementary School are those rare exceptions.
Weezer, the geeky cool Los Angeles-based band whose hits include "Buddy Holly" and "Undone (the Sweater Song)," recently recorded and posted on its Web site and YouTube an eight-minute video: "Weezer Webisode 16 – You Take the Bus to School" In it, Rivers Cuomo and the three other band members read and sing the students' lyrics. So far, there have been over 125,000 hits on the video.
"It would be cool, to go to school in a hamster-powered car," opens one.
Several feature solar-powered contrivances – solar-powered boats, surfboards, skateboards, planes, jet boards, trampolines, and even an imaginative parachute/Sumo wrestler combination are proposed. One features tiger sharks eyeing "human pot pie." The band members clearly have fun reading and singing the pieces.
The Weezer lyric experience began as a writing project in Katie Sullivan's third- and fourth-grade class at the Warren Elementary School. Sullivan was the 2007 Vermont Teacher of the Year. Keryn Nightingale, whose three daughters are Warren students, frequently volunteers at the school. An actor and writer, Nightingale has written and performed two one-woman shows and is nearing completion of a novel.
About a year ago, Nightingale approached Sullivan with an idea. One of her daughters was in Sullivan's class, and Nightingale suggested offering a fun, ongoing writing exploration for the students – she called it "Write and Rock and Roll."
"Keryn had a clear vision of this project, and I thought it was a good complement with my skills," said Sullivan.
In "Write and Rock" as it became known, students listened to music, thought about it and discussed it, sang, danced, and did a variety of writing exercises. They considered mood, story, and other aspects of different pieces. For one exercise, they listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' song "Give it Away Now," then wrote about giving away something, a material thing, that they really valued. From a Velvet Underground song about a girl whose "life was saved by rock 'n'roll," the students imagined and wrote about the girl.
"I also wanted them to write for a band," Nightingale explained. "I wanted them to write for someone cool – who they thought was cool." Weezer, was a great match.
The students started by listening to a 1994 Weezer song called "Surf Wax America," by Cuomo and Patrick Wilson. The song's chorus goes, "You take your car to work, I'll take my board, and when you're out of fuel I'm still afloat."
With the students, Nightingale rewrote the line to say "You take the bus to school and I'll take my …" and the kids filled in the blank.
"I told them if it's good enough, we'll send it to the band," said Nightingale. "It was an incentive."
In the meantime, she sent an e-mail to Weezer's manager, Karl Koch, and asked for an address for the band. The students worked on their writing for several sessions.
"First we sang the real words and then we brainstormed," said Colin Holter, who was in the class. "Some ideas came from a science class we were doing about inventions." The science shows through in several students' combinations of technology and transportation.
Around spring vacation, the writing was finished. The students carefully made their final copies – they wrote them out by hand and illustrated them. Sullivan and Nightingale compiled them in a three-ring binder and mailed the project to Weezer.
"I was hoping we'd get a form letter from them maybe with their signatures. If they signed it we could hang it up in Katie's room," said Sally Goodwin, looking back on the students' ideas about possible responses
"I forgot about it," said Ian Woolson – a sentiment shared by most of the class. The class moved on to other projects.
In late-November, Warren School Principal Andreas Lehner received an e-mail from Koch. Weezer had received the class project.
"I shared the book with the band and it was a big hit," wrote Koch. "We loved the book so much I filmed the band reading from it and we posted it on our Web site recently. Please pass along this info … perhaps they can share the video with their class. Enjoy!"
News of the video and the class's newfound celebrity flew through the school community over Thanksgiving weekend.
"I had the Taylor Swift reaction, when she was at the Grammy's and was speechless," said student Nate Mays. "Weezer's a famous band – you wouldn't expect them to reply to a bunch of kids."
"I was so surprised. As soon as I heard about it I watched it at home, but I don't have volume on my computer, so I watched it on the computer and listened to it on the phone with Annie," said Catherine Anne Berker.
"I was really glad. I was excited that they replied and that they showed it on YouTube. It was awesome," said Colin Holter.
"It makes me feel like someone really cares about our writing," said Sally Goodwin.
The Web site for "Weezer Webisode 16" is www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZPQ kK40Nw
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