45 cookies to recognize the 45 words of the First Amendment – Sue Fuller and her journalism students at Heritage High School (Broadlands, Ill.) created a yummy approach to celebrating Scholastic Journalism Week. Photos by Haley Abbott
by Sue Fuller
JEA mentee
Cheyenne Webb decorates two of the First Amendment cookies while sporting her 45 Words pin.
I got the idea for the 45 cookies to recognize the 45 words of the First Amendment from the JEA listserv to do in conjunction with the JEA Scholastic Journalism Week.
I baked the sugar cookies the night before and then took the cookies to school along with white frosting, colored frosting for the writing, mini chocolate chips, mini M&Ms, and a flat circular “sprinkle” decoration.
Delaney Bury (left) and Teri Sturdyvin helped frost the 45 cookies. The students took the First Amendment poster off the bulletin board and moved the poster to the cookie decorating area to double-check the words.
I thought the kids might use the M&Ms, sprinkles, and chocolate chips to form some of the words, but instead they wrote the words with the bright-colored frosting and used the other items as embellishments. Our yearbook theme colors (the publications class does both newspaper and yearbook) this year are bright on white, so they thought it would befun to carry that through with the cookies — and it seems that it was! I actually had a sub that day, and Mrs. Kim Derby reported that the kids had a blast and kept repeating the First Amendment in order to get the words right.
Some of the cookies were deliberately larger than others, and the students wisely set those aside for the longer words.
Once done decorating cookies, the students decided there were too many for them to eat alone, so they shared with the consumer ed class.
Editor’s note: Thanks to Carol Smith, Sue Fuller’s mentor, who emailed me the 45 cookies photo. I then contacted Sue to learn about this yummy teaching idea. Sue is publication adviser at Heritage High School, Broadlands, Ill. JEA encouraged students and advisers to tweet their 45 Cookies photos @45words and #45cookies and to post on the 45 Words Facebook page.