Introduction to "Triumph and Tragedy in History"

Our National History Day journey began in all US History classes this week. 

I am always striving to improve and streamline my lesson plans and I've realized how essential this blog is for that purpose. Last year's posts (and their labels) were extremely helpful as I continue to hone our NHD work.

All History classes were combined for two mini-lessons to begin to delve into this year's theme of "Triumph and Tragedy in History". Student Historians defined both terms and began to think of examples of triumphs, tragedies, and of topics that relate to both. I am once again very excited after seeing initial student topic ideas--they are interested in a wide range of local and national topics from Early Explorers to 21st Century issues.

Starting slow helps to set the stage for choosing a topic that is relevant and interesting to the student, it also lessens the chance of explaining this project all at once and potentially overwhelming them. This experience will be one of the most profound of their Middle School years and it must be done in small increments.

Students ended the lessons by taking a survey to help decide preferred areas of study for Tuesday's Historical Speed Topic-ing Extravaganza. Our Media Specialist needs feedback and data in order to showcase books from topics students are interested in. We have close to 300 8th Graders this year (90 in First Hour!) and surveys are a powerful organizational tool. 

Online surveys such as Microsoft Forms or Google Forms turn into spreadsheets rich with filterable information to be used to organize many facets of this project--what hour a student has History, with which teacher, what group they'll be working in, which project type they'll focus on, and so on. I kindly pointed out that they should become very comfortable with these surveys--they will take close to five or six before their NHD journey is complete!

Maximizing student interest and using technology wisely are keys to a successful project.

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