Hoboken Junior Senior High School, also known as Panem, has just concluded our second (but not last) Hunger Games competition, based on Catching Fire, the second novel in the trilogy by Suzanne Collins. School library media specialist and head gamemaker, Michelle McGreivey, wanted to use the film’s release to inspire more kids to read. She was lucky to be assisted by a fantastic cohort of faculty gamemakers (Melanie Alberto-Kolmer, Paul Huggins, Christopher Munoz, Tara Donnelly, Cecilia D’Elia, Fiona Stephens, and Edward Barfield), who offered their expertise in designing and staging the challenges.
The seven teams of three to four “tributes” each represented both the junior and senior high school. The teams had to complete five challenges in school that tested their creativity, knowledge of the book, and their physical abilities. The challenges: a canned food drive in partnership with Student Council, an essay contest, a book trivia contest, a difficult physical activity in the gym, and a quest for teacher sponsorships. The students gave an amazing performance through all five tasks during November, and they learned quite a bit about being part of a team along the way. The faculty also got involved in the games by making students compete for their sponsorships throughout the month. Some faculty even took part by portraying various book characters during our daily morning announcements.
We are grateful to Hoboken Bowtie Cinema for their generous donation of movie passes to be used as part of the fabulous prize package for the winning team. We appreciate the community support in our efforts to bring literature to life. We would also like to congratulate our winning team: District 5, comprised of Angelene Veloce, Gianaly Santiago and Amanda Hichez, all 7th graders, who gave it their all and escaped the arena to become victors. These tributes did not rely on the odds being in their favor; rather they applied themselves in every challenge to achieve their victory.
Find out what's happening in Hobokenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Michelle McGreivey
Library Media Specialist
Hoboken Junior Senior High School
