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6th Grade Goes to Trial With Tuck Everlasing

This week on the Lower Campus, 6th grade students invited their families to watch their literary mock trial centered on Natalie Babbitt’s novel, Tuck Everlasting.

Throughout the day, five different groups of 6th grade students tried Mae Tuck for kidnapping, trespassing and murder. Depending on their role, they researched and wrote detailed testimony, opening and closing arguments, and direct and cross-examination questions for the witnesses.

As students prepared for the trial, they looked for evidence from the novel to reconstruct the events leading up to the death of the man in the yellow suit. Witnesses had to write and construct accurate testimony. Lawyers wrote questions, opening, and closing arguments.  

“While this is a performance, it’s important to note that this is not a play,” says Laura Reardon-Childs, 6th grade teacher. "Students’ lines are not always the same because their responses will depend upon the witnesses’ answers to many questions.”
 
Adam Horwitz, Lower School Dean of Students, served as the judge for the trials.The juries, who will deliberate and decide the verdicts on Monday, are comprised of students from each class who were asked to impartially evaluate the guilt or innocence of the defendant Mae Tuck based upon the testimony they heard.
Lower School: 11052 Independence Avenue
Middle and Upper School: 20801 Rinaldi Street
Chatsworth, CA 91311  | 818.882.8121
Sierra Canyon School is a private, independent, non-sectarian, co-educational, college preparatory school for students in grades Pre-Kindergarten through 12 located in Chatsworth, California. The highly cosmopolitan campus community is reflective of the Greater Los Angeles area and the world at large. Students are empowered to realize their greatest creative, ethical, intellectual and physical promise through small class sizes, a diverse student-teacher culture and a family-like environment.