National History Day Documentary

What is National History Day?

National History Day is a competition in which students from around the world compete by researching a historical topic and presenting it in one of four categories: paper, documentary, exhibit, or performance. Students in middle and high school can participate, and they can either compete individually or in a group. Students must place in school and affiliate competitions before they can move on to the national competition in Maryland.

My partner and I competed at the national national level competition with a documentary on the explorations, encounters, and exchange of Pop Art.

Image Credit: National History Day

Researching and Editing

Because of our combined interest in art, my partner and I decided to create a documentary about pop art. After months of research, drafting, and editing we had a documentary to present to the world. We also went above and beyond by buying matching pop art shirts so we had matching outfits during our interviews.

What did I learn?

Participating in the National History Day competition helped me to develop my professionalism and improve my communication skills. One of the unique challenges of writing a script for a video, was trying to balance creating a factually correct yet interesting and easily understood message. We solved this by including interviews. I learned what were the ‘right’ kinds of questions to ask during an interview, as well as how to push an interview in the direction you wanted it to go.

Image Credit: The Andy Warhol Museum