Writing Flat Stanley short stories for West side Elementary in second graders in Roanoke City were fun for the Lord Botetourt students in Bruce Ingram's ninth grade Honors English class.

Flat Stanley goes to high school, at least the past two weeks he has. For those who don’t know, Flat Stanley is a 1964 children’s book by Jeff Brown about Stanley Lambchop who is flattened when a bulletin board falls on him. Stanley lives and makes the best of a bad situation and soon he is sliding into places 3D people cannot go! Stanley helps catch thieves by posing as a painting for instance. One advantage of being flat is that Flat Stanley can now be mailed in an envelope.

In 1995 The Flat Stanley Project began and since then, millions of photocopied and colored Flat Stanley’s have been mailed to the four corners of the earth and return to the child who mailed them with an adventure story of Flat Stanley’s travels.

Enter a father and daughter, Bruce Ingram and Sarah Reynolds, teaching one in high school at Lord Botetourt and the other in Roanoke City in the second grade at Westside Elementary. “We call this teaching across the curriculum and across the valley.” said Ingram who teaches English at LBHS with a laugh. “Our students needed the writing experience,” he said, “and I thought it was a wonderful idea.”

First, the elementary students mailed their colorfully decorated Flat Stanley’s to the high school and Ingram’s general English students took them places and learned how to write and address a letter. “A Stanley went to the Homecoming Dance for instance,” he said. Then he and Reynolds expanded the adventure. Flat Stanley came back to his 9th grade English Honors class with a plot and the child as a character to be matched by another character– the honors student and a short story.

With the help of Hollins University student teacher Heather Bhuwania and Ingram, “The freshman Honors class covered a ton of SOL’s,” the duo said with a laugh. “They all know how to use quotation marks and commas now, that’s for sure.” Said Bhuwania.

She had investigated the Flat Stanley Project online and was amazed at all of the different places in the world that use the project.

Dylan Turner(right) of Daleville received from his second grader, Brianna, that she wanted Flat Stanley to go with her and Dylan to Wal Mart. So Turner wrote an adventure short story with the trio that included Flat Stanley falling into a copier at the mega store and how they solved finding the real Flat Stanley in the Garden Center with a water hose. Cara Beamer and her second grader Parker, took Flat Stanley ice skating and in her story Flat Stanley became stuck on the ice but was rescued when the fire department melted the ice. Kelsey Boyd and her student Chris tried to fill Flat Stanley out by feeding him bacon and pancakes and held a talent show featuring a flashlight spotlight.

The high school honors students said without fail, “We had fun doing this.” The package of stories accompanied by the 19 Flat Stanley’s headed to the mailbox for Westside Elementary and by week’s end, some second graders are going to get great adventures starring not only Flat Stanley, but some high school students and themselves!

OTHER RECENT LORD BOTETOURT COVERAGE

* Oct. 7: Lord Botetourt student places first in tractor competition
* Oct. 4: Photos from the Lord Botetourt – Pulaski game
* Oct. 3: Vanessa Romas starts Botetourt Buddies, seeks scholarship
* Oct. 3: Devon Robertson seeks scholarship before he goes blind
* Oct. 2: Photo of Lord Botetourt runner at Metro cross country meet
* Sept. 29: Photos from Lord Botetourt homecoming dance
* Sept. 27: Photos from the Lord Botetourt homecoming game
* Photos of Lord Botetourt’s fall sports teams.