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Regina Hill, the new Newark Middle School sixth and seventh grade art teacher, wanted the first project of the year done by two of her sixth grade classes, to make an impact. She asked students to create a large mural of an influential person from the past, who started a chain reaction. They chose Anne Frank. Rachel Joy Scott, the first student to be killed in the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, and whose beliefs that acts of kindness can start a chain reaction drew a great deal of her inspiration from Anne Frank's diary writings. They were written when she and her family were hiding with Jewish friends in Amsterdam during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. After two years in hiding, the group was discovered, arrested and transported to concentration camps where Anne died of typhus seven months later within days of her sister, Margot's death. 'The obvious connection and similarities to Rachel Scott seemed to have inspired all of the students,' Hill explained. 'It fueled their desire to learn more about World War II, the Jewish faith, and the Holocaust.' Regina Hill is pictured with Larry Scott, an uncle to Rachel Scott. Students checked out all of the books in the school library on Anne Frank and many bought books about her. Drawing inspiration from the work of portrait artist Chuck Close, who uses a grid to enlarge the portraits he creates while being confined to a wheelchair, each of the 47 students replicated the shading (value) in pencil from a section of a reference image of Frank on an 8' x 8' square with four smaller squares inside it. The completed 200 squares form a large, stunning nearly five-foot-square mural that is on display outside the auditorium. Work on the art project spilled over into the s English and Social Studies classes. Hill said many students decided to complete their biography project on Anne Frank and students asked social studies teachers questions about events in World War II related to Anne Frank's plight. Copyright
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Sixth graders in Newark make Anne Frank Mural