Last Wednesday, Cedar Hill Elementary’s Interpretive Reading Club presented to its HSA a historical look at Towaco in celebration of Montville Township’s 150th anniversary.
Cedar Hill Elementary’s Interpretive Reading Club is much like the Forensics Club at Montville Township High School. Students select passages they wish to present to an audience. Reading orally with appropriate volume, eye contact, pacing, and expression are taught and practiced at the meetings using monologues, skits, poetry, and speeches.
A passage from the presentation "On a Towaco street called Waughaw Road, there was an old rural school called the Towaco School. The school building later became known as Lyceum Theater. Today, it is a private home, which has been moved farther back from the road. Also on Waughaw Road was Towaco’s first railroad station and guardhouse. In this house was also a barber’s chair that was used for haircuts in the early 1900’s."
Resource: Images of America: Montville
Patricia Florio Colrick for the Montville Historical Society
Arcadia Publishing Co., Charlestown, SC (2000)
Although students had a good time, they took the work seriously and were disappointed that the Morris County Interpretive Reading Competition for elementary teams was scheduled for the same day as Cedar Hill’s 5th grade fieldtrip. Next year, Ms. Olenowski and Mrs. Fisher look forward to coaching more students and watching the current student members become even more confident and skilled public speakers.
Teacher Coaches: Mrs. Anne Fisher and Miss Samantha Olenowski
Student Readers: Elysa Iannuzzelli, Libby Iasso, Kendall Kabbash, and Ayaan Khan