'Hamilton' brings history to life for Springfield students

The popular Broadway musical "Hamilton" is coming to life at Springfield High School. Well, sort of. Students are using it as inspiration for their own learning, and it's earned them a ticket to the show.

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'Hamilton' brings history to life for Springfield students By Adam Sullivan | Posted: Tue 6:48 PM, Oct 23, 2018 | Updated: Tue 7:06 PM, Oct 23, 2018 SPRINGFIELD, Vt. (WCAX) The popular Broadway musical "Hamilton" is coming to life at Springfield High School. Well, sort of. Students are using it as inspiration for their own learning, and it's earned them a ticket to the show. It's spoken word, poetry, song, and a little hip hop that students at Springfield High School used to present their history projects on the founding fathers. "When you are writing something about the past, it is really easy to go with an old-time classical feel, but he manages to take that and make it a hip-hop, R&B pop-style, and I love that.," said Xzavior Fitzwater, a junior. He's talking about Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the broadway sensation "Hamilton," which was based on the biography of Alexander Hamilton. "I've been obsessed with him. I've listened to his other musicals, I keep up with his Twitter even," said Myasia Martin, a junior. The students were tasked with using Miranda's style to fuse pop culture with the past. "It could be a person, It could be a situation. We had a lot of Boston Tea Parties," said Rebecca Skrypeck, the Springfield English teacher behind the effort. And the students are performing with a purpose. They will be heading to the Boston Opera House in November to see the show. It's all made possible through the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Students will submit one of their videos along with the dozens of written works. In return, they are getting the tickets at the drastically discounted price of $10. In some cases, tickets can go for hundreds. Skrypeck says it's project learning at its finest. "They are doing it through art, through writing, through performance, and bringing everything together and learning about a subject in history that may not be so exciting," she said. "I feel like doing the projects and acting. Everything puts us more in a place that they were in instead of sitting down and reading a paper about it," Martin said. And at the same time, the students are making their own historic hits.