Affiliate School Program
Affiliate News
Winter / Spring 2010
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Affiliate News, the quarterly email newsletter exclusively for the Gilder Lehrman Institute's Affiliate School teachers. This newsletter and the Affiliate School program itself is made possible in part by a multi-year We the People challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that was awarded in September 2009. Affiliate News will let you know about the latest offerings from the Gilder Lehrman Institute, as well as what's going on in the Affiliates network. If you have news you'd like to share, please pass it on to affiliates@gilderlehrman.org.
U.S. News & World Report honors ten Affiliate Schools
Affiliate School students win top honors in Civil War Essay Contest
Affiliate students from Hawaii take second place at National History Day
U.S. News & World Report honors ten Affiliate Schools
Affiliate Schools from Massachusetts to California earned spots on U.S. News & World Report's 2009 Best High School List. The list, now in its third year, recognizes schools that produce measurable academic outcomes exceeding statistical expectations and state averages.
A hearty congratulations to gold medal winners Brooklyn Technical High School (Brooklyn, NY), and Cold Spring Harbor Junior/Senior High School (Cold Spring Harbor, NY); silver medal winners Bob Jones High School (Town, AL), Gertz Ressler High School (Los Angeles, CA), John D. O’Bryant High School of Mathematics & Science (Roxbury, MA), Milwaukee School of Languages (Milwaukee, WI), and The Wheatley School (Old Westbury, NY); bronze medal winners Frederick Douglass Academy III Secondary School (New York, NY) and Pulaski High School (Milwaukee, WI); and honorable mention Hastings High School (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY).
Affiliate School students win top honors in Civil War Essay Contest
Eureka High School student Scott Loring went the extra mile to write his prize-winning essay. Or make that 3,000 extra miles.
While visiting his grandparents in upstate New York, the California resident traveled to Elmira, the site of a Civil War prisoner of war camp, braving freezing temperatures, working with microfilm, poring through journals at the county historical society that few graduate students would dare touch--and earning third place for his highly researched paper on the prison camp.
First place winner Ally Tank, then a sophomore at West Morris Central High School in New Jersey, conducted her research closer to home. Ms. Tank’s paper, titled “Abraham Lincoln and the New Birth of Freedom,” examined the nuances of Lincoln’s writings on abolition throughout his political career, drawing from a wide variety of primary sources.
Now in its tenth year, the Civil War Essay Contest is co-sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute and the Civil War Round Table of New York. Students from the Institute’s Network and Affiliate Schools are eligible to submit papers in the middle (grades 6-8) and high school divisions on any topic related to the conflict. Schools are responsible for choosing the five best essays from each school and submitting them to the Gilder Lehrman Institute for judging.
Information on this year’s contest has been sent via U.S. Mail to all Affiliate Schools, and the deadline for submissions is March 12, 2010. If you haven’t received an information packet, please contact Caroline Luther (luther@gilderlehrman.org or 646-366-9666 ext. 31).
Affiliate students from Hawaii take second place at National History Day
A trio of seventh graders--Zachary Frampton, Kameron Ho Ching, and Kenner Shumway-- from Kahuku High & Intermediate School in Honolulu, Hawaii, placed second in the group performance category for their entry, "Hope is an Action: The Legacy of Father Damien."
According to program advisor Lorey Ishihara, National History Day projects are required of all Kahuku students in grades 7 through 10 as part of a state-wide initiative sponsored by the Hawaii Council for the Humanities. Implementing this in the classroom, she explains “has helped teachers develop rigorous history courses that integrate primary and secondary sources in the classroom.” Teachers aren’t the only ones who have benefitted, she adds. "My former students now in college send me messages saying that their history classes really prepared them well for what they’re facing in college."
Looking for materials relevant to this year's theme, "Innovation in History: Impact and Change?" Check out the nineteenth-century technology issue of History Now.