History Day: the day every kid enrolled in Honors World History dreads. It is when the biggest research project of the year is due for sophomore honors history students, and it represents a large portion of their grade. Being a sophomore participating myself, the stress and nerves associated with this project is significant. An average History Day project takes hours to create, and students are expected to work on these projects for an extended period of time. The categories for History Day are unproductive and do not help students in the long run, involving too much work that is frivolous and unnecessary.
History Day projects are on a historical topic of the student’s choosing, and they must conduct primary and secondary research on that area. The project must be in one of four categories: documentary, exhibit, performance, and website. None of these categories really advance a student’s knowledge to aid them in skills they will need later on in life. For example, a student is probably not going to need to create a documentary again in their lives. They are extremely time consuming because students have to find pictures, add music, and narrate their project. During this part of the process, they are not learning useful facts about history. Exhibits are also a considerable waste of time. Students spend time cutting out pictures, printing out their captions, and organizing their board so that the whole history aspect of it seems less important than how impressive the board looks. Performances are great for those outgoing and stage-loving students, and while the script is based on history, all the time dedicated to saying the lines smoothly and incorporating the appropriate expressions and voice inflections seems unproductive and not related to the academic aspect of History Day at all. Lastly, a plethora of time is spent on organizing and making a website appealing, which are also unnecessary skills for history class.
All the stress students experience for History Day is really unnecessary. Honors World History teachers started discussing the importance of History Day at the beginning of the year. It is a project that looms over students’ heads until the fateful day arrives, but it would be more productive to simply write an in-depth research paper. There is a category for research papers in History Day, but students at CHS are not allowed to part this sensible category. There seems to be no benefits of doing these overly elaborate projects, especially since students have plenty of time-consuming homework they should be working on instead of focusing on History Day.
One may argue that there are some aspects of History Day that are beneficial to students. Learning to research is a significant part of History Day, and a skill students will utilize throughout their school careers, as well as in a future job. However, a research paper would give all the same benefits, and would also work on students’ writing ability. Research papers are assignments that students will have to participate in both high school and college, and learning the skills necessary for them is much more productive than participating in other history day categories.
History Day is an unnecessary cause of stress, and the skills students are required to learn usually do not help them later on in life. The categories available to CHS students for History Day are not beneficial, making History Day a pointless endeavor. Therefore, it should be an extra credit opportunity rather than a required assignment.