Fantasy, medieval life mix in Kila lessons

Imagination was in long supply at Kila School last week.

Moat-encircled castles with drawbridges, gate houses, portcullises, baileys, chapels, keeps, granaries, bake houses and stores to keep the inhabitants supplied through a long siege - all in miniature - filled the desks in the seventh-grade English classroom.

As a run-up to a unit on fantasy literature, Rick Funk had his students use their creativity to reproduce what has come to be the quintessential archetype of medieval life on a 20-by-20-inch square.

"I never had an interest in it," Amber Golden said. "But then Mr. Funk brought it up and I did."

She was sitting at her castle with a pliable, blue-tinted, water-and-flour moat, showing it to younger students as they toured through the room.

Hers had a working drawbridge, raised and lowered by a thread attached to a spool. Eight towers rose above the walls, which themselves abutted a pastoral landscape painted on an upright cardboard backdrop.

Beautifully done details were important to Golden.

"I started on it the day after he assigned it," two weeks earlier, she said. "My mom helped, but I did most of it."

Her classmates came up with modeling-clay, cardboard and sturdy cedar-and-styrofoam renditions. One had an outer wall of pointed wooden sticks and a coconut-covered keep roof. Hand-sawn plywood and water bottles formed another model. Sugar cubes were the foundation for yet another, still under construction.

Fantasy was in full bloom in the gumdrop-and-Starburst candy castle with pop-can towers.

Realism came to the fore in one model with banks of classic cutout-topped castle walls and turrets, sandblasted-stone finish and all the trimmings - complete with Gummi-bear archers standing in defense of the sturdy fortress.

Castle construction has become a tradition of sorts at Kila School in recent years.

But it's castle building for literature's sake, the school librarian, drama and English teacher said.

By the time the castle project was due, his class was about half-way through reading "The Hero and the Crown," Robin McKinley's 1985 Newbery Medal-winning fantasy adventure novel.

The book draws on quests, dragons, a wizard, magic, a terrible villain and a hero - who turns out to be a heroine in disguise - on a white horse. The Newbery Medal is the highest praise children's literature can receive, akin to the Nobel Prize for humanitarian accomplishments or the Pulitzer for journalism.

"It's a difficult book, but the kids are doing very well," Funk said. "The interest it generates is great."

Funk also taps into a video, and other books, calendars and posters. All help teach his students enough about what traditional castles and fortresses looked like, and give them enough of an idea about how people lived in medieval times that they can carry that over to their own school work.

Then he hands out "Mr. Funk's castle rubric."

It's a check list of what he expects to see in each student's finished project, and the number of points he will award for each item.

They choose the type of castle they want to build - for example, the traditional stone-walled, turreted model, or the motte-and-bailey style, with its wooden walls and inner and outer baileys, or courtyards of sorts.

They get five points each for castle components such as the drawbridge, main and inner gatehouses, the keep or a portcullis - the large, heavy wood or metal grate with a spiked bottom that slides up and down across the entry to stop attackers in their tracks.

Funk awards 15 points each for originality and finished appearance.

And students can get extra credit if they build a tiny weapon of the period - a trebuchet would be nice - or if they write a story about the castle and its inhabitants.

Parents are encouraged to get into the project alongside their children.

"Once I handed out the rubric," and the students incorporated each part, Funk said, his primary goal had been achieved.

"The rest was art work," he added. "Once they understand what it's like to live back then, I don't want to take away for differences in skill with art."

Artistic individuality played a big part in the project.

Tyler Barnes said his dad thought his castle - made from cedar shims and Styrofoam - looked more like a cathedral.

He didn't mind, though. After all, how many cathedrals have a drawbridge defended by a knight wielding a dragon-emblazoned shield, as Barnes' does? He took three days to perfect his castle, complete with a portcullis made from Lego spears and PVC-tube towers.

Jeremy Grosswiler, on the other hand, figured he took three hours to rig up his cardboard castle with its orange roof, oversized well and watchtower.

William Sanroman fashioned his castle from sturdy sculpting clay, complete with outer curtain wall to divide his outer and inner baileys, and the stable, store and bake house to keep the castle dwellers supplied.

Amanda Anderson had a wall of pointed wooden sticks. Two Gummi bears were drawing water from the well in Allie Wallace's candy castle. Brian Fichter had to scale back his imposing wooden structure to fit within the 20-by-20-inch parameters. Sarina Erickson laid in a supply of sugar cubes for her castle construction.

Many of the students went to the Internet for specific design ideas, augmenting their classroom lessons.

They end the whole unit with a feast, filled with the fare and festivities that might have been found in a medieval meal.

But until then, the fun of the castle had its day in court.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com