Moran Prairie Students Explore Expedition Notes

Last spring, writer Jack Nisbet led students at Moran Prairie on a wild vole chase.

This year he asked students to examine William Clark’s legends.

Last year, Nisbet helped fourth- and fifth-grade students create a topographical map of the school’s natural habitat.

During the mapping exercise, students quickly discovered that the habitat’s most common resident is the vole, like a field mouse, a furry tunnel excavator that gladly chooses flight over fight.

“We spent a lot of time chasing voles around,” said Nisbet, describing the hazards of contour mapping.

The Spokane writer spent the past week with fifth- and sixth-graders at Moran Prairie as part of the state’s artist-in-residence program. The parent-teacher organization at the school welcomed his return, as did staff and students.

Nisbet, whose most recent book, “Sources of the River,” traces the meanderings of 19th-century explorer David Thompson, brought another explorer to life in the classroom: William Clark.

Clark, who accompanied Meriwether Lewis on the famous cross-country trek of discovery from 1804-1806, was a gifted artist and map-maker, but his handwriting and grammar were terrible, Nisbet said.

Clark’s cartographic drawings are amazingly accurate - the Columbia River, the Cascade Mountains are easily recognized - but the legends that accompany Clark’s maps are a jumble of hieroglyphics.

With the aid of an overhead projector, Nisbet asked fifth-grade students to help him decipher Clark’s handwriting, which spread out haphazardly across the hand-drawn maps.

Even students sitting closest to the screen had to squint as they attempted to read the explorer’s scrawl.

Their guesses elicited giggles from classmates and Nisbet.

“Covered with snow,” said one fifth-grader, gazing at one of Clark’s scribbled phrases.

“Tofu covered with snow,” another student added.

“He didn’t spell and his grammar wasn’t very good, but Clark was an amazing map-maker,” Nisbet told the class.

Using history, maps and storytelling, Nisbet tries to inspire young writers to become better observers.

Nisbet has worked in the schools for 10 years. He is a favorite at Moran Prairie.

“It was a wonderful experience for our youngsters,” said Principal Marilyn Highberg.

“Most of the fourth- and fifth-graders had worked with him last year. I saw him pull some creative writing out of some youngsters that was truly amazing,” Highberg said.

Clark’s maps are accurate because he was a good observer. That same quality makes for better writing, Nisbet said.

As a writing exercise, he asked students to describe a wild animal’s encounter with a domestic animal.

“Describe what the wild animal does,” he said. “Does it puff up its cheeks? Does it sputter?”

Children hunched over their desks. Their pencils crossed the paper slowly, as if they, too, were explorers picking their way through unknown territory.

When they finished writing, Nesbit picked up the student’s essays and read a few aloud:

“I saw my cat play with a spider, a brown ball with eight legs. My cat caught it and ate it all, except two leftover legs,” Nisbet read.

“What sentence is the most fun?” he asked.

“The leftover legs,” said a chorus of fifth-graders.

“Why is it the most fun?” Nisbet shot back.

The chorus replied: “Because you can see it.”

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