“How much can you really learn the last [day] before finals anyway?” said English Teacher Dan Tompkins, after Christmas caroling around the Communication Arts department with his seventh period English class.

Tompkins took a new approach to last minute cramming by incorporating the holiday season into his lesson. Instead of having students study vocabulary words in groups, he had them make Christmas cards with the vocabulary in them, which were then presented in Communication Arts teachers Marybeth Reilly and Laura Starke’s classes.

After presenting the cards, Tompkins’ students wanted to continue the lesson in the holiday spirit and suggested to go caroling. They had been singing the Christmas carol, “Feliz Navidad”,  the day before in class and chose this song to sing.

“I was amazed, the kids really got into it,” Tompkins said.

Students who were visited by Tompkins’ carolers were rather surprised by the unplanned stopover.

“Everybody was kind of shell shocked at first,” Tompkins said. “There were different degrees to everyone loosening up and lightning up and singing along.”

Tompkins acted as lead vocalist, and played guitar along to the music as well.

“It was just kind of fun,” Tompkins said.