National History Day: Paper and Documentary Notes

When I watched documentaries at NHD Nationals in 2012, I took some general notes that friends have told me are useful, so I thought I'd share them. I also have some very brief notes on my experience competing in the paper category. Hope this is useful!

Documentary

Most people had their documentaries on DVDs. I would recommend having multiple DVDs and a copy on a flash drive.

Starting screen while waiting on judges to read process papers – preferably with no sound.

Students serve as the narrators of the documentary.

Sources are listed in the credits, but sources in the credits may be very general.

Most of the entries have background music. Awkward cuts of the background music can be distracting. For example, most senior entries have an intro, then go to the title screen, then continue. If there is music in the intro, it should carry through the title screen into the beginning of the main section of the documentary.

Almost all finals documentaries at Nationals have interviews, even if they’re with professors.

Documentaries use photos, video clips, sound clips, music, interviews, drawings and other art, charts, graphs, maps, and images of documents (especially newspaper articles). Common techniques are zooming in and out, panning on images.

The students should give the process papers to the judges before going to set up the video. They will have to wait for the judges to finish reading.

The student(s) should stand throughout the showing of the documentary, and competitors are responsible for adjusting the volume if it is necessary.

Technical problems are pretty common and are not held against the entry. It’s important that the competitor remain composed through technical issues.

Students must introduce themselves and their documentaries before starting, so they should know how to project their voices to be heard throughout a room.

It’s a good idea to check Fair Use policies before using video clips/music/photos.

National History Day: Performance Notes

At NHD 2012, I watched a lot of performances, both individual and group, and I took some notes that friends have told me are pretty helpful. These notes are split into individual performance and group performance, but a lot of the individual notes apply to group as well! Some of these notes will be more helpful early in the process of coming up with a performance, and some will be more helpful later on.

Individual Performance

Most competitors start with an introduction: “I’m (name), and my performance is (title).”

Most competitors have multiple characters, usually but not always including a narrator.

Character changes should be very clear. It’s best to change voice/accent. Many competitors change costume. Turning around or bowing the head also often indicate a character change.

Small costume changes may be sufficient – adding a pair of glasses or a shawl. Some performances had much more extensive costume changes. The 2^nd place entry brought a black curtain hung on a PVC pipe frame behind which he changed coats, vests, hats, and wigs.

Costume changes have the possibility to be awkward silences. Many competitors fill this by playing music. The 2^nd place entry either continued speaking in the character he had been or was an unidentified gossiper. He was *very* quick with his changes, or this could have become confusing.

Costumes do not tend to be simple. They should be appropriate to the character(s), and some of them are so elaborate.

Props/backgrounds varied greatly. The winning senior entry had elaborate sets – three backgrounds hung on PVC pipe frames, a small loom, a spinning wheel, a desk, a mannequin, a bell, and a telephone. However, one of the other entries that made finals had only two pieces of paper meant to be letters. Props should be significant, not just there to look good.

National History Day: Exhibit Notes

At the NHD National Competition a couple of years ago, I took a lot of notes about what I saw from exhibits. At any stage in the process, whether you're just starting or trying to fix up your exhibit for Nationals, these are some things to consider.

Exhibits
 

The best exhibits are more like museum exhibits than science fair boards. The colors, decoration, and even design of the board tend to correspond to the topic.

Lots of entries use video screens integrated into the board.

Most entries use a trifold shape, and many of them make use of the traditionally empty are on the table between the sides of the trifold. Here there may be models, maps, relevant timelines, etc. It’s important to not just try to fill this space, though – everything present should add something to the exhibit.

Because of the limit on student produced words, most boards have lots of quotes, images, and documents.

No one will read a long block of text – split the text up. However, too many short text blocks can make the board look busy, so there has to be a balance. The board should provide lots of information in an organized fashion.

Choose two or three thematic colors that go together, and make sure there is enough contrast that the board is easy to read. Choose a readable font in a large enough size, and don’t use very many different fonts.

Some exhibits use texture backing material on the board to theme it – thin cotton for Triangle Shirtwaist, woven plant mats for Guam, etc.

Most exhibits were trifolds – cardboard, foamcore, wood, even corrugated metal – and tall. However, others had three or four sides and spun. One of the entries that made finals was in the form of a very large book because the topic was Dr. Seuss.

Some of the exhibits were two pieces vertically joined with latches, Velcro, or braces.

Don’t just glue everything flat to the board. Using foamcore to bumpt things out creates a more polished appearance.

Some exhibits are interactive: lift the flap areas, layered stacks of pages, trains that ran, video selections.

National History Day: General Nationals Notes

If you're headed to the National History Day Contest in Maryland, congratulations! Here are some roughly organized general notes and suggestions from my tip to NHD Nationals a couple of years ago. I'll also be posting notes for different events. Hope they're helpful!

Entries

Process papers are often awkward by nature. This can be minimized with correct grammar and spelling and varied sentence structure. For group events, the process paper should be written in first person plural, and team members should be referred to by name.

Referring to historical figures by first name only is rarely appropriate. Characters in a performance are an exception.

Judging

Within each event, entries are split into seven rooms. From each room, two entries move on to finals. In finals, the entry must stand on its own – no judge questions. This means that paper, website, and exhibit competitors don’t know until after the awards ceremony if they made finals because they don’t have to be present for finals judging.

60% of the judging is based on the history – accuracy, context, analysis, use of available primary sources, and wide research. Another 20% has to do with the theme – relation to the theme, showing the significance of the topic of the entry, drawing conclusions. The last 20% is based on balanced research, clarity, and presentation of the entry.

Wide research – variety of sources, both primary and secondary

Balanced research – multiple perspectives, identifies biases

Competitors should always know more about their topic than they present, and they must be able to answer specific questions about their topic and sources.

Typical questions about sources: Which was the most interesting, most influential, or most important? Judges may also ask more specific questions, for example, “I see you interviewed Professor X. How did that influence your entry?”

Typical general questions: When did you start working on your entry? What have you changed since districts/state? What surprised you most in your research? What did you learn? What single thing should we take away from your entry? Questions also often require bringing the topic to the present – what influence has it had?

Students should be able to defend unusual choices they made in their entry. For example, I saw a performance that was almost entirely pantomime, and they were asked to explain the decision to do pantomime instead of a more traditional performance.

Students should shake hands with the judges. In paper, the most convenient time is at the beginning of the interview. For all the other events, it’s best done while passing out process papers.

Students should not tell the judges that they’re from a certain state. The judges aren’t supposed to know.

Bring four process papers to the competition. There are three judges for prelims and three judges for finals. At each step every judge will take a process paper, but after the judging they keep only one.

Students should dress well on any day they’re competing competing – so for paper, website, and exhibit, have one nice outfit, and for performance and documentary, have two in case you make finals.

Delegation Related:

Pin trading is a big deal, particularly if you stay in the dorms, I think. State pins are for sale at the state NHD competition, and then at nationals the competitors trade and try to get a pin from every affiliate.

Most states wear the state NHD t-shirt to the awards ceremony, so bring it!

Going to the performances and documentary showings of other people in one’s delegation is highly encouraged.

National History Day: Tips for the Paper

For NHD 2012, I participated in the paper category and placed 13th nationally. The theme that year was "Revolution, Reaction, Reform" and my paper was about Euclid's impact on mathematics. Below the fold are a things that either were helpful as I wrote or that I learned along the way. While I'm writing these with the paper in mind, some could apply to other events (or to process papers).

National History Day 2014: Arts Topics

No topics related to the arts are mentioned in the NHD Theme Book or list of suggested topics this year. Here are a few suggestions, split up by type of art. I might update this throughout this semester, and given the topic this year, this will be shorter than the science lists.

Dance
Soviet ballet defection (I think it's a stretch to relate this to responsibilities, but if you come up with something, it could be fantastic!)
Censorship/propaganda in Soviet-era Russian ballet (a really good starting resource would be Apollo's Angels)
I haven't read it, but there's a book called Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice that looks really interesting and could be a good jumping off point for a project!
Dancing bans (legal or religious, and again, responsibilities might be a stretch)

Film
The Hollywood blacklist -- could go a lot of directions from here. Could talk about naming others to HUAC or not, pamphlets like Red Channels, or the Writers' Guild working to give proper credit to those who were blacklisted.
Propaganda films and how that relates to rights and responsibilities, either of people or of governments.
Man With a Movie Camera and revolution in the Soviet Union -- this is a really cool film impacted by the idea that a social and political revolution should also induce a revolution in the arts, and it really shows the industrialization occurring in the late 1920s.

Literature/Writing/Philosophy
Thomas Paine's Common Sense and/or Rights of Man
John Locke
Thomas Hobbes
Ayn Rand and objectivism
Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations
Banned books and freedom of speech -- either in general or focusing on specific books
What is To Be Done? (by Chernyshevsky, by Lenin, or both!) and Bolshevism
Literature and civil rights -- could focus on James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, or Lorraine Hansberry
Uncle Tom's Cabin
To Kill a Mockingbird
(This could be such a long list, and here I've focused on just a couple of ideas and given some suggestions. If you come up with a rights issue, search for related literature!)

Visual Art
Political cartoons and freedom of expression. Could choose particular cartoonist, incident/cartoon, etc.
Propaganda posters and the relationship to the rights and responsibilities of people/governments. Choose a country and time period and possibly even a theme within it. (I'm in a Soviet Union class right now, and there are some great examples of propaganda posters here: http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/chairman/sovintro.php)


(So sorry there is no music or theater here! I think a lot of the ideas from the others could be carried over to those, but I just don't know the details.)

Foreign Language Summer Programs, Part 1: Concordia Language Villages

There are lots of programs for students of a variety of ages to learn foreign language over the summer. I'm going to highlight the larger and better known ones in this series of posts. Many of the others are more local, so check your area if this is interesting! In addition, for college students and even high school students there are lots of summer study abroad programs through which language learning is possible, but here I'm going to focus on the programs whose main goal is language.

Concordia Language Villages
Ages 7 to 18
www.concordialanguagevillages.org
CLV offers camps for German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Finnish. There are no applications, just online registration. Each language has a village, a campsite in the woods (usually in Minnesota) on a lake. The names of the camps generally translate to "Lake in the Woods." Campers stay in cabins with other campers of the same gender and (approximately) age. Each cabin has at least two counselors.

Camp is meant to be a mostly immersive environment. Except at nightly cabin meetings and other times when the information is very important, the counselors speak the target language. Campers are encouraged to speak the target language at all times but are generally not required to do so. Students are placed in small classes based on their level. The schedule depends on the camp and the session, but each weekday there are classes, activities, free time, and a large evening activity based on the theme for the day. (At Lac du Bois, the French camp, some daily themes were the Maghreb, the Tour de France, and the environment.) There is also lots of language learning through singing and staff member skits. Classes and activities are all run by counselors.

Most of the languages have at least one 1-week session. The ages for this vary, but tend to be younger. I don't recommend this session because one week isn't enough time to really become immersed in a language.

All languages have at least one 2-week session. The ages vary by session, but usually there are 2-week sessions for everyone from age 8 to age 18. Classes for 2-weekers are fairly informal. The group of students in a class stay together but may switch teachers after a week, and each week might be themed. (I had classes focused on weather/nature and Senegal.) At Lac du Bois these classes were more focused on speaking than writing, but this varies by counselor and language. Languages using a different script are more likely to have a writing focus in 2-week classes.

All languages also have a 4-week high school credit session. This is for any student entering freshman year through senior year, and the four weeks are meant to cover approximately one year of high school instruction in the target language. Placement is based both on speaking and writing. These classes are much more academic, and a grade is given at the end. There is also a mandatory portfolio, which is a collection of objects and written reflections on them (in the target language) based on given prompts.

French, German, and Spanish also have 4-week college credit sessions. The format is similar to the high school credit session, but the class is more difficult. This is for rising high school juniors to college freshmen, and an application with a target language essay and teacher recommendation is required.

Note: There is a second French camp called Les Voyageurs. Voyageur campers do not stay at the French campsite. They camp in the woods, learn about the history of the real voyageurs, go to Voyageur National Park, and canoe to the US-Canada border.