YOU ARE HERE >
Main > Teacher Resources > Teacher Projects > TAH Project Sum... > Tucci Project...
Michael Tuccio Project
Summary
National History
Day
Persell Middle School of Jamestown Public Schools
Michael Tuccio
New York State History Day
When I first received the letter
for Regional History Day in January, I didn’t give it much thought.
Teachers often get notes about contests and students rarely show an
interest. I assumed it would be the same with this. I had heard
John Keating talk about his experience at History Day during TAH
last summer, so I felt I had some idea of what it would be. That
allowed me to talk in greater detail with my students about it. I
told kids if they were interested, to come and talk to me. I had no
idea what was about to happen.
The next day four of my 8th
grade girls approached me about an idea. They wanted to do an
exhibit on the Holocaust. I didn’t take it too seriously at this
point. These were not my top students, but they were good kids and
I wanted to hear more. I told them to write up a little proposal
about what they wanted to do. I said I wasn’t going to give them an
application, which TAH was going to be paying, unless I was
confident that they’d go through it. They gave me their idea: they
wanted to focus on children of the Holocaust who survived. At this
point, I was interested.
We met after school to discuss
their ideas and it was at this point that I gave the girls the
application to fill out. They were in it now! I also began
emailing Rebecca Smith and John Buchinger about the Elmira
competition. This experience would not have been what it was
without these two. Rebecca sent pictures from the competition last
year and John sent me a DVD from the 2006 competition. The girls
and I watched John’s DVD during lunch early in February. It was
helpful to have some idea of what other projects looked like. Now
it was time to get down to business.
We started at Persell’s library.
Zach Snow showed the ladies everything the library had on the
Holocaust, including some new reference books that had just come
in. I told the girls to each take out a book or two and skim over
them. There wasn’t going to be time to read everything, but I
wanted them paging through the books, reading about people, the
experiments, the geography, as well as paying close attention to the
bibliographies and photographs. The girls were all diligent in
their research. They loved the topic and appreciated how sensitive
they needed to be, especially because they were focusing on
children. There were more than a few tears shed during the process.
I also sent the girls home one
weekend with a couple of DVDs that I had in the classroom, along
with some videos that the Persell library let them take home. They
spent a weekend reviewing these materials. They then got to work on
websites and began looking at specific children. It was at this
point that they decided not to research Anne Frank. They wanted to
talk about kids that no one knew about. They were starting from
scratch, with one exception: David Faber. Mr. Faber is a survivor
who came to our school last year. He had quite an impact on the
students, and the school bought a copy of his book. The girls
decided to use their experience seeing Mr. Faber in their project.
They also interviewed Carole Shulman, one of our guidance
counselors, who had much of her extended family murdered during the
Holocaust. These were the girls’ main primary sources.
The ladies ended up with about
fifteen sources. They had plenty, but not enough of a focus on
primary materials. This was one of the weaknesses. I tried to help
them get a balance of primary and secondary sources and this was
difficult because they were talking about people that there wasn’t a
lot of ink on.
Once they spent a couple of weeks
researching, they began working on the exhibit itself. They went
shopping for their board and supplies and dove right in. It was
difficult to have them all get along all of the time, but they
worked as a cohesive unit most of the time.
March 17th came along
and we were off to Elmira. I figured they would do well, make their
families and me proud, not place and we would all go home better off
for the experience. The exhibit was put up and their interview came
along. The judges in Elmira that they were with were two wonderful
ladies. The girls had me nervous about this part because they got
pretty nervous in front of crowds. Betsy Rowe-Baehr, our ELA
teacher, and I had them practice with our 8th grade
students and they froze! I figured that there was no way they would
be able to pull this off. I was wrong. They did an amazing job
during the interview. They blew me away. Part of the reason, a
great part, was that by this time they felt confident talking about
their topic. The ladies said that the judges made them feel
comfortable, as did I who was with them. Not so. They did it
themselves.
We felt good about our chances
afterwards, but had a couple of hours to wait. When it came time
for awards, of which the top two moved on, I thought…maybe. The
ladies won first place in their division, the junior exhibit
category, which is grades 6-8. As a side note, second place went to
another TAH teacher from Cassadaga. Pretty cool. After the awards,
John Buchinger spoke to the kids and reminded them to pay attention
to the judges’ comments. If they didn’t, and went to Cooperstown
and the state competition without changing anything, John said all
they were getting was a weekend in Cooperstown. If they wanted to
compete, they had to work to do.
The girls had a week off to revel
in their victory, then it was time to get back to business. We
ended up getting a new board because it got messy trying to fix the
one they had. This was good for everyone involved, including me.
After all, it had been a lot of time spent with these kids, and now
their families.
When we did back to work, the kids
did a great job. With what they had, they made it much better. We
left for Cooperstown confident. We were in for a rude awakening.
Elmira was a small little affair, a couple of dozen projects in a
tiny museum. Cooperstown was the NFL. Tons of great exhibits, tons
of winners, lots of intimidation. I kept reminding the girls that
winning at this level didn’t matter. They were already the first
Jamestown students to compete in Elmira, and in Cooperstown.
They did not place in the top two
at Cooperstown, but they made me extremely proud, as well as their
parents. They worked hard, but now understood that to compete at
the state level took much more. This was not a matter of not doing
enough between Elmira and Cooperstown. With what they had, they did
a great job. We just did not realize how big the state competition
was going to be. A piece of advice for anyone interested: look at
as many photos of the exhibits as you can and email John Buchinger,
Rebecca Smith and Tobi Voigt, the coordinator at the state
competition this year, who was wonderful.
It was interesting to me that out
of the 300 or so entries in all of the categories, there was one
from Buffalo, one from anywhere near Rochester (Victor), and just
about no one from our area. One from Sherman (John Keating), one
from Cassadaga, a winner from Allegheny, and that was about it.
Most everyone else from Syracuse to NYC. Some districts took buses
with all of their students.
NYS History Day has been an
experience I will never forget. I got to watch four hard-working,
average-intellect students succeed in a way I could never have
imagined. I saw their parents cry with excitement and their smiles
lit up the school. I have never been prouder of any students.
Lastly, the best thing I can say is that as soon as these girls
heard that they were not moving on to the National competition, they
were looking at next year’s theme to get ideas. Pretty impressive.
Tuccio Write-up as
a Word File
|