How should I prepare my students for a successful Festival?

• Familiarize students with the featured Laureate.


• Familiarize students with the Honored Guest.


• Students conduct a comprehensive study on their “Adopted Laureate”. You can demonstrate your learning in many ways. See display and performance links on the resources page (press the back button at the bottom of this page to get there) for some hints.


• Optional: Some schools have the students wear a similar shirt color or maybe even a school shirt to help locate students at the festival. Also some schools have created special T-shirts to honor their selected laureate.

Creating a Successful Display

A visual display is one way to share what you have learned about your adopted laureate. During the festival, your students will have an opportunity to share their display with students and honored guests as well as view other displays. You will have a table at your display and access to electricity if arranged with the Festival Coordinator well in advance.

Helpful Hints:

• Quiz the Visitors: Interactive displays work best. Have the visitors answer questions and flip flaps or open doors on your display to see if they are right.


• Ask Me a Question: Prepare your students to talk to visitors. Before the Festival, each student memorizes some critical information about their Laureate. Then students can write down the questions on a craft stick or a piece of paper. On Festival day, students can carry those questions in a cup, a can or in their hand. They then ask visitors to pick a question and ask them. Students can share the answer.


• Simulations: Create a situation for the visitor that helps them think about the work of the laureate. In years past, students have created simple physical structures that visitors can enter to represent Jane Addams' Hull House or the UN High Commission on Refugees. People who studied Jodi Williams and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines simulated a mine field.


• Offer remembrances: Visitors may like to have a student-made book mark or button to remind them of what they have learned about the laureates. Keeping things simple and student created are the most meaningful.

Creating a Successful Performance

Festival attendance can be anywhere from 800 to over one thousand people. The viewers are in the Si Melby Hall seated on rising bleachers. Multiple microphones are available for student use.

Helpful Hints:

• Performances need to be kept to no longer than four minutes.


• Chorale readings: Groups have alternated their Laureates words with student written comments or observations.


• Songs: Songs written by the students that teach the viewers about the laureate have been successful. Songs can also be related to peace themes. Groups have included simple movements to coordinate with their song.


• Dance: Dance can be directly related to peace themes or created specifically to honor the chosen Laureate.