Twenty years later, real-life accounts are helping Indian Lake Middle School students understand and commemorate the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
Friday, ILMS eighth-graders concluded an in-depth study of the events of 9/11 with an annual interview project.
After studying an intense timeline of the events leading up to the terrorist attacks and America’s response, their assignment was to interview someone in their life to learn about their personal experience that day. Then each student wrote an essay about the emotions that person felt on September 11, 2001. Finally, students post their interview essays on the giant memorial display at ILMS.
In conducting the interviews, students discovered what impact the attacks had on those closest to them. Most students turned to their own parents or teachers for their personal story of an ordinary morning turned terrifying new reality.
Because these students were not yet born when the planes took down the twin towers, crashed in Pennsylvania and hit the Pentagon, they were asked to consider what their reaction might have been.
“It was all very shocking,” eighth-grader Avrianna Arthur said. “I think it would have been so hard to cope with all the grief and sadness everyone was feeling all at the same time.”
This year’s lesson at ILMS also included elements of R-Factor training. During Friday’s Laker Time students considered how America’s resilience in the face of terror shaped the country we live in today.
In addition, students observed a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. Friday morning to commemorate the moment the first plane hit the World Trade Center.
For the next few weeks, each essay is posted for everyone to read on a massive 9/11 display at the middle school.