National History Day One Day Can Change the Course

1. National History DayOne Day Can Change the Course

2. Program Overview Each year, more than half a million students, encouraged by thousands of teachers nationwide participate in the NHD contest. Students choose historical topics related to a theme and conduct extensive primary and secondary research through libraries, archives, museums, oral history interviews and historic sites. After analyzing and interpreting their sources and drawing conclusions about their topics’ significance in history, students present their work.

3. Program Levels • Teacher • Campus • District/Regional (FBHD) • Texas Contest (THD) • National Contest (NHD)

4. Program Structure • Divisions • Senior: High School (9-12) • Junior: Middle School (6-8) • Categories • Historical Papers Individual • Documentaries Individual Group • Exhibits Individual Group • Performances Individual Group • Websites Individual Group

5. General Rules • Students may participate in the research, preparation, and presentation of only one entry each year. • Groups may include 2 to 5 students • All categories except historical papers must include a “process paper” with their entry. • An annotated bibliography is required for all categories. The annotations for each source must explain how you used the source and how it helped you understand your topic.

6. Why Take on This Project? • Social Studies Skills TEKS • Development of real-world skills • Students get to “do” Social Studies • Differentiated learning opportunity

7. Choosing a Topic • History Day themes are usually very general. For example, “The Individual in History.” • The generality of the theme allows students to choose a topic that they are truly interested in. Whether that be history, art, science, literature, sports, music, etc.

8. Choosing a Topic (Cont.) • As a general rule of thumb, students should not choose a topic that has occurred within the last twenty years.

9. Theme 2006 Taking a Stand in History 2007 Triumph and Tragedy in History 2008 Conflict and Compromise in History 2009 The Individual in History 2010 Innovation in History 2011 Diplomacy and Dialogue in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences 2012 Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History • TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY • RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

10. Primary & Secondary Sources

11. Interviews Consider Interviewing people for some of your sources • Helps direct all research • Assists students in narrowing focus • Forces students to think about their topic by developing the interview questions • More fun than just reading all the time. 

12. Interview Questions • Binary--These are good for obtaining factual information that falls into the yes-no, true-false category of answer. Good questions for the students to start with because they are easy to write.

13. Interview Questions • Fill-in-the-blank--This type of question has a simple answer, usually a name, frequency, or quantity, which is the kind of information these questions are good at obtaining.

14. Where do I find a person to interview? • Topic Library—example Space Shuttle http://www.nss.org/resources/library/

15. Where do I find a person to interview? • Museum • http://tankmuseum.org/ • RELATED SEARCHES • Danville Tank Museum • Patton Tank Museum • Tiger Tank Museum • Tank Museum California • Tank Museum Bovington • Tank Museum Maryland • German Tank Museum Munster • Tank Restoration

16. Where do I find a person to interview? • University • http://www.rice.edu/ • http://natsci.rice.edu/

17. Where do I find a person to interview? • Teacher or school personnel • Teacher worked at NASA • Teacher worked at Medical Center • Teacher who has outside interests • Relative who was in the military • Neighbor who has an interesting job • Parents who know people 

18. Narrowing the Focus History Day projects should be specific rather than general. It is difficult to engage in quality analysis if the focus is too broad. Students should choose a topic that interests them, but that they do not already have a great deal of knowledge about.

19. Placing the Topic into Context • Once a focused topic had been chosen, students should then work on placing the topic into a national and/or global context. • This promotes in-depth analysis of the topic.

20. Research (Cont.) • Resources for Research: • County Libraries • University Libraries • University Professors, or Other Experts on the Topic • Internet

21. Bibliography • Quality over quantity. • Having a wide variety of sources is best. • Not all internet sources, VARIETY!  • Use the MLA format when creating a bibliography.

22. Bibliography (Cont.) • The bibliography needs to be separated between primary and secondary sources. • The bibliography also needs to be annotated. • The annotations for each source explains to the reader the importance of that source to the project as a whole.

23. You Be The Judge

24. Campus Contest • Several projects from each category make it to the “Campus Finals.” • As of now, 3 projects from each category make it from Campus Finals to District Competition

26. History Day:A Meaningful Way to Learn History and Social Studies Skills

27. National History Day Focus on all history Project Based Awards are available for quality research For 6th-12th Program Description

28. What does NHD look like?

35. Websites • http://42758196.nhd.weebly.com 2010 – THD 1st place winner from FBISD • http://41129682.nhd.weebly.com 2011 – THD 1st place winner from FBISD • http://www.nhd.org/studentsites.htm 2011 – NHD entries in all categories

36. Performances • http://www.tshaonline.org/education/students/texas-history-day/1221 2008 – Trent Butler’s Project

37. How does the competition work? National History Day • Levels of Competition

38. Additional Resources • Colleagues/Teachers • http://teacherweb.com/TX/SartartiaMiddleSchool/MsW • Librarians • Historical Societies and Sites • Archives and Archivists • Subject Matter Experts