For weeks, the students at Bear Creek Elementary had been closely looking for clues to guess the identities of the staff members behind the masks reading their favorite books via video, part of the school’s “Read Across the Creek: Masked Reader Edition” event, a spoof on the television show by a similar name.
Could the reader be a teacher?
Could it be the principal?
Could it be the librarian?
Only those behind the masks, and librarian Michelle Brosi, who organized the month-long event, were in on the school’s most well-kept secret, an idea that she came up with after hearing about reading celebrations from other colleagues at other GCISD schools.
“It’s been fun just hearing the anticipation around school about who the readers could be, but also talking about the joy and love of reading,” she said. “It’s also been great being able to use our technology resources to create the videos.”
Brosi used Flip, a video sharing app, to record the mystery readers reading their books out loud. She then created a Google site for teachers to share through Canva or Google Classroom for students to watch on their own devices during small group time, before morning announcements or during lunch. To disguise identities, readers changed the pitch of their voices while reading, and Brosi added a Flip sticker with the mask of animal characters: a bear, a tiger, a giraffe, a cat, a duck, a dog, and even a unicorn.
Determined to guess the identities, students sometimes re-watched the stories over and over. At other times, they asked questions that might reveal the secret identities.
“Several students asked to look at my fingernails because one of the readers had red fingernails,” Brosi shared.
The excitement about clues prompted Brosi to create a second round of videos, with each mystery reader sharing hints, of the universities that they attended, which promotes the school’s No Excuses University college-going culture.
Finally, reveal day came during a Friday, February 22, schoolwide assembly where students cheered with excitement as one by one the masks came off. The secret identities were familiar faces: all teachers and their principal, Dr. Bryan Calvert. Brosi was not the person with the red fingernails, but rather the voice of the event theme song “Masked Reader,” which was the opener to each of the videos.
“From the joy of listening to a new story, the silliness of seeing teachers in masks, and the sleuthing with clues and guesses, it has been wonderful experiencing the fun around campus,” Brosi stated. “The best part is that students had a chance to see that reading is for everyone, whether you are a student or teacher or a principal. Everyone can enjoy a good book to read.”