History Fair and end of 2nd Trimester

The great Lindblom History Fair has begun! I have many projects that have been completed including several papers and documentaries. As expected, there are a few excellent projects and quite a few that are, well, not so excellent. It seems that many of these projects turn out so that it is a nice looking board with some great visuals and whatnot but very little in the way of historical analysis and interpetation.

One of the things I stressed most was that each project had to answer the "so what?" test. When I look at an exhibit's topic, I need to have the answer. I need to know why the topic is historically important and what the impact is. Many of these projects come oh so close but just fall short of that benchmark.

I'm in the process of grading all of these projects, which count as the final exam grade for this trimester. We'll see how students grades fare after this. I have a feeling there will be some very disappointed young people after the grades are entered. What will be interesting though is showing all the parents the projects this Friday on report card pickup night.