For Teachers & Students

Writing Prompts/ Using the Carousel to Study History

This section aims to help engage students in learning about the Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel and the process of trying to bring it back to public life.

Letter-Writing/ Creative Writing Prompts

At Lockeland School, after a presentation on Red Grooms and the Fox Trot Carousel, we posed the following questions to the students to get the creative letter-writing juices flowing:

• If you were the Governor of TN/Mayor of Nashville/artist Red Grooms/TN State Museum (owner of the Carousel)/a citizen of Nashville or elsewhere in TN, what might you think should be done with the Carousel? Could different people have different opinions, and what might they be?
• How could the restoration and reinstallation of the Carousel benefit the city/state/school kids/tourists/art students/history lovers, etc? How could it be used to entertain, teach, inspire?
• How could we learn from earlier mistakes in the planning/reinstallation/operation of the Carousel?
• Imagine you are one of the Carousel characters, in a box in the basement of the Tennessee State Museum. What would be your opinion on your current situation? What would you hope for? Imagine a conversational exchange between some of the characters.
• What music would be appropriate to play while the Carousel operates?
• What character(s) from TN history would you add to the Carousel?

Using the Carousel to study Tennessee History

• Research one of the Carousel characters in depth. Why was this person/creature/item picked to represent a part of Tennessee's history? In your opinion, were any key figures in TN history overlooked? Of those that were depicted, should any have been left out? 
• Make a time line of Tennessee (or US) history and place the various characters from the Carousel in context.
• The Carousel was completed in 1998. What new characters or historical events (painted on panels), if any, might be added to represent the 15 years since then?

Lesson Plans