Now What? Phase One
Congratulations on choosing History Day in your classroom. Here are some useful tools and steps to help you along the way.
Step 1: Establishing Your Timeframe
Decide on your timeframe and your plan to integrate the program into your classroom. Will History Day be a project for the entire school year? Will students develop their projects only in the second semester? Click here to review a discussion about planning your timeframe for your classroom. Click here to see sample timelines and syllabi.
Step 2: Topic Selection
The fortunate thing about History day is that the topic is broad enough to cover any classroom scenario. The 2013 theme is "Turning Points in History: People, Ideas, Events". The files and links below will provide you and your students with useful tips in deciding a topic that is appropriate to the course and tailored to student interest.
Students may even want to tailor their project to topics specific to special awards prizes at the regional and state contest level. To find a list of the regional award possibilities contact your regional coordinator. Please click here for the possible awards at the state contest
Also note: At this point, students should also decide on whether they want to participate as an individual or group and the presentation format.
Step 3: Conducting Research
Students now must consider the facts and how they relate to the theme by conducting primary and secondary source research. Be sure to plan time with your school librarian! Also encourage students to conduct research outside of the classroom in libraries, archives, museums, etc.
Below are some useful links and handouts to help with the research process:
Step 4: Developing Theses and Projects
Now that students have started their research, they can devote their energies to the production of a well-developed thesis statement, a decently organized and designed project, a clear process paper, and an annotated bibliography.
Remember, all students must follow the basic guidelines as specified in the NHD rule book in the development stages of their project.
The links below provide category-specific information and examples, as well as other useful links and handouts for this step in project development.
Important note: All websites MUST be created on the NHD-Weebly system. Click here to go to the site.
Developing Projects
Process Paper/Bibliography
Rule Book