{"id":3197,"date":"2015-02-05T14:12:58","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T14:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/?p=3197"},"modified":"2015-02-05T14:12:58","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T14:12:58","slug":"entrants-2015-nyc-history-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/2015\/02\/entrants-2015-nyc-history-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrants to the 2015 NYC History Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"History<\/a>
\u201cA Good Scare: The Palmer Raids\u201d history project, created by Jesse Morris (IV) and Beth Awano (IV). Photo by Jesse Morris.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Initiated by Mr. Meyers approximately 15 years ago, every year Fieldston holds a history fair for sophomores in the context of National History Day. The fair revolves around a different theme every year, and this time the central motif was the role of leadership in history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a chance for intellectually minded students to compete,\u201d Mr. Cullen said, \u201cand it also gives students a creative outlet, an alternative to doing things like writing essays or taking tests, or the usual \u2018fare\u2019 of history courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The projects range from posters to documentaries to websites to essays, and each teacher assigns their own limitations on the time period during which students present. Outside of those boundaries, students are free to choose how to and what to present. Mr. Kleinman said that for a presentation, \u201cVisuals tell the story, and visuals present more information than text could, which is limited by a word count.\u201d<\/p>\n

When looking at various projects, Mr. Kleinman likes to ask himself, \u201cCan I read your project, as I would an essay, visually?\u201d As in a research paper, he looks for a developed thesis and an organized presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking for two core things,\u201d Mr. Cullen explained. \u201cOne is some kind of a creativity\u2014 broadly defined\u2014 usually this is a matter of visual flair, or some kind of presentation that frames an issue in a compelling way… So we\u2019re looking at people who are sort of able to present things in a compelling way, but we\u2019re also looking for intellectual substance in terms of the argument they make, and how you make an argument with pictures, or how you tell a story in a non-narrative mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Meyers said that students\u2019 effort and enthusiasm as well as relation to the year\u2019s theme were also weighed when deciding the overall grades.<\/p>\n

The students create projects that, if chosen by the 10th grade history teachers at Fieldston, advance to New York City History Day, an annual March event. The NYCHD consists of students from all over New York, presided over by a panel of judges. Those who are elected to advance further make it to New York State History Day in April, and lastly National History Day is in June.<\/p>\n

The teachers have a limited number of presentations that can be selected from each category. Therefore, the more students who write essays, for example, the less likely each one is to be chosen because of the generally raised competition.<\/p>\n

At the State level, at least for documentaries, the students would present their work and then talk to the judges. For poster presentations, the judges just walk around and view each one in a gallery.<\/p>\n

According to Mr. Cullen, Fieldston tends to do well in the City division, and \u201cwe occasionally have folks advance to State level, and every once in a very while we have someone who makes it to the National level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Various students who have participated in the fair spoke of room for improvement. For example, because the fair is held in the commons, the presentations tend to be crowded together tightly. The ensuing chaos makes it difficult for students to present their work, and they feel that they have not been able to say all that they needed to. Some have suggested using the gym instead, like the annual Science Expo, which would allow for a smoother process overall.<\/p>\n

Some also feel it would be beneficial to work with students outside of one\u2019s own class, because from a pedagogical perspective, each student from a different class has a different input from which others could learn.<\/p>\n

Mr. Meyers adds, \u201cAlthough we [the history teachers] are not so thrilled about the competitive aspect, we participate in National History Day to give students an opportunity to share their scholarship in public. Athletes and performers get to share their achievements with parents and other students, while historical scholarship is often only shared with the teacher. The National History day is, in a sense, a form of \u2018varsity academics,\u2019 where students get to share their efforts in public, and enjoy the work of students from many other schools. It is also an opportunity to work in groups and to explore new media for communicating ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following Fieldston students have been chosen to advance to further history fair(s):<\/p>\n

Individual essay<\/strong>
\nEthan Schondorf: Tecumseh
\nSarah Lyon: Whitman
\nAlex Hsi: Struggle for Leadership at Valley Forge\n<\/p>\n

Individual website<\/strong>
\nSophie Schnell: Grimke sisters
\nEve Herzog: Leadership at Valley Forge<\/p>\n

Individual exhibition<\/strong>
\nLucy Pruzan: Mercy Otis Warren
\nAlie Brussel Faria: Margaret Sanger<\/p>\n

Group documentary<\/strong>
\nAsher Muldoon, et al: Alexander Hamilton
\nEmma Mitnick, Nina Redpath, Sydney Cameron: Abigail Adams\/Dolley Madison
\nMathew Gellman, Matt Rubits and Kai Nelson: New Deal<\/p>\n

Group website<\/strong>
\nAlex Goldman and Isabella Astrachan: Tecumseh
\nSaoirse Maher-Greene and Keerti Gopal: Crazy Horse?<\/p>\n

Group Exhibition<\/strong>
\nLena Church and Liz Weinstein: John Brown and Nat Turner
\nBen Smith and Jacob Morris: Baron von Steuben
\nJessie Morris and Beth Awano: Red Scare<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Initiated by Mr. Meyers approximately 15 years ago, every year Fieldston holds a history fair for sophomores in the context of National History Day. The fair revolves around a different theme every year, and this time the central motif was the role of leadership in history. \u201cThis is a chance for intellectually minded students to compete,\u201d Mr. Cullen said, \u201cand it also gives students a creative outlet, an alternative to doing things like writing essays<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":3209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"coauthors":[188],"class_list":["post-3197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/History-Banner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3197"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3203,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions\/3203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}