Two Lee County public schools are among the winners of the Scholastic Fall 2008 Middle School National Student Crew Contest. Gulf Middle School took first place honors and Cypress Lake Middle School captured a second place designation.
Gulf Middle School, with its first place, will receive a visit from Diary of a Wimpy Kid Author Jeff Kinney and a $2,000 shopping spree for books. Last fall, 48 Crew members from Gulf Middle School transformed their media center into a French restaurant in Paris with a banquet of books. Their theme of La Readatouille was a parody on the movie Ratatouille, about a rat who loves to cook. They created an Eiffel tower, and played French music to set the stage. Crew members became maitre’ds, waiters, and chefs, and French classes translated the cafeteria menu, media center signs, and portions of the daily news into French.
Cypress Lake Middle School, with its second place honors, will receive a $1,000 shopping spree for books. For Cypress Lake Middle, 2008 was not only a history-making year for the country, but it was also one for Cypress Lake Middle School. The Crew chose Reading Campaign 2008 as their Book Fair theme, teaching their school about the presidential election as well as books. The Crew reached out to authors Margaret Peterson Haddix, Carl Hiaasen, Roland Smith, and Gordon Korman and featured them part of their reading campaign. They even received E-mails and bookmarks from some of the authors. The Crew members campaigned with T-shirts and signs for the different authors, trying to rally other students at their school to vote for their authors. This activity greatly increased excitement about books by these authors, making them top-sellers at the Fair.

Source: School District of Lee County