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Michael Tuccio
09
Project
Summary
National History
Day
1. General Overview of the Proposed
Project:
Helping students participate in New York
State History Day.
2. Clear Purpose and Objective:
Expose Jamestown area students to History
Day at the regional level, and hopefully the state level. This is a
new challenge for me because getting high school students interested
proved more difficult than middle school students.
3. Stakeholders: grade level, who will
benefit, who will participate in this project.
All students of mine have the opportunity
to participate. This year I only had one student compete, but she
did make it to the state competition. Leisha Kolstee took second
place in the exhibit category at the senior level at Fredonia’s
regional competition.
4. U.S. History Content Area
This year’s theme was the Individual in
History. Leisha’s project focused on Benjamin Franklin’s scientific
discoveries.
6. Software to be used, internet
materials, contacts, etc.
Tons of websites, including History Day’s
home site, Yale’s Avalon Project and Digital History
7. Level of Student Involvement
It was all Leisha’s work. She did an
incredible job. She qualified for Cooperstown last year and her
work this year improved by 100 times. She did better research, she
spent more time on the exhibit, and the experience at Cooperstown
last year showed her what it would take to compete.
8. Evaluation process (include students
when possible)
I have never given students grades for
History Day. I’ve met some teachers who have all kids do it, and I
don’t agree with that idea. It’s too much work to have students be
told to do it.
9. Timeline: how you envision the
project being carried out between start up and conclusion
This year, I started working with Leisha in
December. The regional competition is in March, revision work takes
place in late March/April, and the Cooperstown competition was
Friday, May 1st. Leisha didn’t win in Cooperstown, but
she did great work on her project.
Mike Tuccio
JHS
Third time’s the charm. That’s
what I thought about this year’s History Day competition. To date,
I have not had two years that were identical. This year’s new
things marked the first time I had a repeating student compete in
the competition. Leisha Kolstee, currently a ninth grader at JHS,
was an 8th grade student of mine last year and qualified
for the state competition in the exhibit category. This year, she
was able to repeat that feat. Leisha chose to do a project on
Benjamin Franklin this year. The competition’s theme was the
Individual in History. Leisha’s project turned out ten times better
than the one she did last year on newspapers during the abolition
movement.
I started working with Leisha in December. I
do not have her in class this year, which made it more difficult to
coordinate meeting times. This is also the first year I worked with
a student that I did not have in class. That offers many obstacles
to someone who is used to having the student in class. I directed
Leisha to a ton of resources on Franklin, including primary sources,
his autobiography, numerous biographies, websites, DVDs and several
essays.
The regional competition was in March at SUNY
Fredonia. Leisha took second place once in the exhibit category and
was real excited to qualify for Cooperstown again. As soon as
Fredonia’s competition ended, revision work began. As always, I
instructed Leisha to take the judges comments seriously. We sat
down and reviewd her scores and looked at what needed to be changed.
There was not a lot to improve upon, but she did add more visuals
to her piece, as well as a resource box filled with Franklin
writings and replicas.
The Cooperstown competition was Friday, May 1st.
Leisha did not qualify for the National competition, but she did
great work on her project. I was thrilled that she tried again
after last year’s success. I intend to get more high school
students involved next year, which is harder than at the middle
school level. I also hope to get other teachers involved. I am
still the only Jamestown teacher who has competed in the
competition, and I believe that needs to change. This is one of the
most rewarding things I have been involved in during my career and I
would like to see others take advantage of this amazing program.
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