A local English class uses a mock trial to finish writing its novel.
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IRON MOUNTAIN -- Trenton is standing trial for killing his stepfather.
As real as it sounds, it is just a mock trial to determine the end of a novel written by a high school English class at the Iron Mountain-Kingsford Community School.
"For my students this would be really hard--to be in public like this and acting things out and have to take things from a book and actually internalize it,” said English teacher and mock trial coordinator, Sally Beauchamp. “I think they did a very good job of that."
Beauchamp's class decided the fate of the novel's main character, Trenton, would be decided in a mock trial, with her students acting out many of the characters.
"The book that we wrote already kind of had a cool twist to it,” said student/actor Brandon Johnson, who played the main character, Trenton. “To actually get to act it out and see what would happen in real life, it really made it become real to me."
This proved to be more than just a class project.
Two local attorneys and a local judge volunteered their time to make this mock trial as real as possible and to give the class an ending to their novel.
"In my profession, sometimes you see some of the darker sides of the community,” said mock trial prosecutor and real life attorney Grant Carlson. “It's fun to be able to work with kids a little bit and give them a little exposure as to what the courtroom is like without actually having to be in the courtroom."
The jury, consisting of students from another class, found Trenton guilty of murder. But the lessons the students learned are more important to Beauchamp than the ending of the book.
"Now we have the end of it and it's not the way any of us really wanted it to turn out,” Beauchamp said. “But that would be life and you know that's what we were going for."
