Taft students recently earned honors for their submissions to Connecticut's state-level National History Day competition. Upper mid Felicia Wang was named the second-place winner in the Senior Papers category, while lower mid Anishka Perera took second place in the Senior Individual Documentary category.
Connecticut History Day is one of 58 National History Day affiliate programs, and invites students in grades 6-12 to explore local, state, national, and world history by researching and writing papers, or creating video documentaries, exhibits, live performances, or websites on a historical topic of their choosing that fits with the year's theme. Competitors are asked to conduct extensive research using libraries, archives, museums, and oral history interviews. Students then analyze and interpret their findings, draw conclusions about their topic's significance in history, and create final projects. Those projects are judged by professional historians and educators.
This year's theme was Breaking Barriers in History. Felicia approached that topic through a paper entitled A Tale of Consumerism and Conformism: Too Many Barriers Broken? Anishka filmed the short documentary, Mahatma Gandhi: The Peaceful Protester. The senior categories include all high school-age regional winners from across the state. Their second-place honors now qualify Felicia and Anishka for national-level consideration.
