WHAT IS NATIONAL HISTORY DAY?Founded in 1974, National History Day (NHD) is a non-profit organization for education that provides opportunities for teachers and students to participate in historical analysis. More than 600,000 students worldwide perform pristine research on historical topics of their choice each year and fabricate projects to show their results. NHD fortifies history education by providing students with active learning and teachers with professional development. Students study history through the compilation of topics of interest and launch into year-long research projects within the competition. NHD's purpose is to advance middle and high school edifying and learning of history.
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THEME: COMMUNICATION IN HISTORY
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?
It's important to have a common understanding of what the word communication means before we dive into the project. The concept of communication is the process of sending and receiving verbal and nonverbal symbols and signs that are impacted by various interpretations to produce meaning. This definition is based on other communication definitions that have been rephrased and refined over several years. Communication starts with language, the distinctive capacity that has made human society's evolution possible. With language, any message can be communicated between individuals over a limited distance, no matter how complicated, within a room or place of assembly, or across a short open space.
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HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE HISTORY?
We expect novelists, poets, and playwrights to take advantage of language's ambiguities and resonances, and, expect them to effectively convey the dictates of the unconscious, not always rational in their choice of words. In the other hand, historians can express as simply and directly as possible within their conclusions. Some metaphors may be a communication aid, however, others may lead to a subterfuge and obfuscation. With all the temptations to indulge in metaphor and rhetoric, cliché, sloppy phrasing and slang, it is fiendishly difficult to get the true historical fact that is to be administered to the public correct. There are two vital injunctions: "reflect" and "revise". Revise, means not to achieve elaborate literary impact, but to communicate to the reader exactly what you say. For historical communication, an exact, uncluttered style is important, whereas the style can be elegant. Sentiment in historical writing is not enough, it is thinking that is required.
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History is told through various ways. It is told through stories, it is told through textbooks, it is told through songs, it is told through plays. Because of these different forms of communication, history is able to thrive and become one of the main subjects of the core curriculum. We are able to have a history because of the numerous ways it has been communicated down to our generations through those that are older than us and are able to repeat the stories or events. Through communication of ideas, we are able to not only spread history, but create what is to become history. For example, through the many debates and arguments our Founding Fathers have experienced, we are able to live democratically with rights and laws. It is also through communication that we are able to strengthen these laws and commit to them in our daily lives. Communication is the key to telling history and what occurred, and why the communication of history is incredibly important.
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History is told through various ways. It is told through stories, it is told through textbooks, it is told through songs, it is told through plays. Because of these different forms of communication, history is able to thrive and become one of the main subjects of the core curriculum. We are able to have a history because of the numerous ways it has been communicated down to our generations through those that are older than us and are able to repeat the stories or events. Through communication of ideas, we are able to not only spread history, but create what is to become history. For example, through the many debates and arguments our Founding Fathers have experienced, we are able to live democratically with rights and laws. It is also through communication that we are able to strengthen these laws and commit to them in our daily lives. Communication is the key to telling history and what occurred, and why the communication of history is incredibly important.