Short stories and a novel-like work in progress

A long poem in sections.

(not required for professional paper)

During this project seventh grade students and I collaborated to accomplish the goal of building a relationship between the seventh and fifth grades so the younger students could feel safe and welcome at our school. I used a teaching approach based on the elements of adventure and the experiential cycle of learning to help seventh grade students develop leadership skills. Team building activities and a community adventure brought the seventh and fifth graders together. The leadership role of the seventh graders during these events served as the catalyst for building a positive caring relationship between the two grades.

My final creative project explores research about what makes a successful community theater and tracks development leading a theater troupe in my hometown of Great Falls, Montana. In my lifetime, three theaters began, thrived and perished in Great Falls. The Green Room, Center Stage and Summer Musicale started as little more than groups of friends who loved theater putting up a show. All three experienced success for several years. However, all three eventually crumbled. Before I built my own troupe, I needed to spend some time planning and learning how to avoid what my predecessors failed to do. I examined my involvement and experiences with these three companies. My reflection, discussions with other theater members, and investigation revealed that lack of experience, inadequate financial understanding and low standards of quality contributed to each of their demises. Following reflection on these companies, I gained insight into what makes a successful theater by interviewing community members who are familiar with theater organizations and the community of Great Falls. With their input and my own reflections I then researched what the experts had to say on the subject. These experts either started their own now prospering companies or they consult with theater companies on how to make an organization better. Equipped with the knowledge from all of these resources, I formulated my own plan to produce quality theater in Great Falls I established the beginnings of a theater organization to produce creative work.

This is a work of original poetry by Shannon Ward.

Reconciliation is a novel that focuses on JoAnna Morgan, a thirty-two-year-old woman living in Lexington, Kentucky. Already struggling with her job as the director of a local performing arts center, JoAnnaâs world is thrown into disarray when her parents announce they have decided to leave their current spouses and reunite more than twenty years after their acrimonious marriage ended. Their reconciliation causes painful memories from the past to resurface for JoAnna and her older brother, Gregg. This personal crisis further jeopardizes JoAnnaâs job because her fatherâs wife is the daughter of an influential member of the theaterâs board of directors. In the midst of trying to cope with the repercussions of her parentsâ decision, JoAnnaâs former boyfriend, Karl, comes back into her life. As the novel progresses, JoAnna confronts her past and makes choices that will alter her future.

This collection of poems examines Latino migration to the United States from the perspective of a Central American immigrant on U.S. soil. The poems pay particular attention to the Mexican/American border landscape, the nostalgia of the homeland, the condition of Latino immigrants in the South, and the struggles associated with assimilation. Through surreal imagery, echoes of Latin-American poetry, and Mayan allusions, the poems represent the contemporary Latino experience: a battle of past, present, American, and Latin forces.

This is a collection of original poetry.

A Final Day in the City is a novel which covers a day in the lives of Lucy Weathers, a high school history teacher in Seattle, Washington, and Dix, a member of a mysterious group of individuals who are given extreme powers and charged with killing various people, people who are seemingly chosen at random by an unknown higher power. Dix's present task is to kill Lucy, but Lucy, for reasons unfathomable, is given a 24 hour reprieve. In that period, Dix and Lucy traverse Seattle in a desperate attempt to discover why she has been chosen, and if there is any way for either of them to avoid their fates.