It’s like the start to a well-told joke. So, Ben Franklin, Malcom X and Pocahontas walk into a school cafeteria…

But there’s no punch line this time, only a class of third graders putting history into action. Last week at St. Ann’s School in Norwood, parents enjoyed a room full of tiny, animated historical figures, who, with a push of a fake button, told an abbreviated autobiographical story.

As part of teacher Noreen Hagerty’s biography unit, each of her students chose a historical figure to study. Each created a poster complete with pictures and historical facts, memorized a brief autobiographical account and came up with a costume that would embody their chosen figure.

Over the years, Hagerty has added various pieces – a report, a poster, a speech – to the biography project. This year, she had the idea for a living, breathing wax museum, which came to fruition last week in the school cafeteria.

There, parents were treated to a buffet of historical heavyweights (literally, in the case of boxers Muhammad Ali and his daughter Laila). Civil rights heroes Malcolm X, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. stood side-by-side in solidarity, as baseball pioneers Roberto Clemente and Jackie Robinson took swings at racial and ethnic barriers. Meanwhile, Native Americans Sacajawea and Pocahontas jockeyed for leadership positions, as Henry Hudson’s mustache kept falling off.

It was truly history in the making.