In Search of A Story: The Children of Castle Tucker

At Castle Tucker

In Search of a Story: The Children of Castle Tucker is a language arts-based program geared to a middle school audience. A visit to Castle Tucker is the centerpiece of a unit that includes researching and writing a short piece of historic fiction using one of the five Tucker children as a main character.

Before the visit, students receive an electronic resource binder filled with family letters, photographs, and other primary-source documents to refer to throughout the unit. A museum educator visits the classroom to introduce the property and the family that lived there and to lead a The Price is Right-style game based on Tucker family receipts.

During the two-and-a-half-hour field trip, students engage in a series of pre-writing exercises in the house and on the grounds, play croquet, and do a dramatic reading of a nineteenth-century farce, The Two Puddifoots, once performed by the Tucker children. Back in the classroom, they produce the finished product, a short piece of historical fiction set at Castle Tucker.