It's not (necessarily) Montana history but...

StudentCam is C-SPAN's annual national video documentary competition that encourages students to think critically about issues that affect our communities and our nation. This year students in grades 6-12 are asked to create a short (5-6 minute) video documentary on a topic related to the new 2019 competition theme, "What does it mean to be American? Choose a constitutional right, national characteristic, or historic event and explain how it defines the American experience." With cash prizes totaling $100,000, C-SPAN awards prizes to 150 student documentaries, and over 50 teacher advisors. Entries may be submitted no later than Sunday, January 20, 2019.    

I went to look at some of the videos the students have created in the past (impressive!) and the first one I saw was No Trespassing: Seeking Justice for Native Women, which begins with an interview with Montanan and Northern Cheyenne tribal member Gail Small.

On some level, the project reminds me of National History Day in that it asks students to create a product (in this case a documentary) around a theme. If you are interested in this type of project-based competition but teach history rather than civics, you might want to think about National History Day. You can learn more about this year's NHD theme, "Triumph and Tragedy in History," at the National History Day website. You can learn more about next spring's regional and statewide competitions at the Montana NHD site. (The state competition will be held in Bozeman on March 30, 2019. And there are projected to be FOUR regionals this coming year.) Finally, you can learn about the cash prizes offered by the Montana Historical Society for the best Montana topic and the best use of digitized newspapers at the our NHD page.

This year's theme is made for Montana history. For example:

• Triumph: The construction of the Fort Peck Dam, the invention of the Holter heart monitor, the creation of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

• Tragedy: the Montana Sedition Act, the Hard Winter of 1886-87, the Speculator Mine Disaster, Indian boarding schools, the Marias Massacre. 

• Triumph and Tragedy: Homesteading boom and bust, construction of the transcontinental railroads, the creation of Glacier National Park, Butte: the Richest Hill on Earth, Cobell v Salazar (the mismanagement of Indian Trust Funds and Blackfeet banker Elouise Cobell's campaign to set things right). 

Find a few starting points for researching Montana topics here. Of course your students don't have to do a Montana history topic. You can incorporate NHD into any history course you teach (and remember--you can make it work for you by limiting student topic choices to the eras/geographic regions your class focuses on.

Questions? Contact Montana's NHD coordinator and Plentywood social studies teacher Michael Herdina, who is both the brains and the brawn behind NHD's resurgence in Montana. 

P.S. To write this post, I spent a little time exploring the Montana National History Day website, which is well worth to time. It is there I found a link to this Framework, created by the National History Day Minnesota. Some of it is specific to Minnesota but a lot of it will be useful to you--especially if this is your first time incorporating NHD into your curriculum. It includes graphic organizers, lesson plans, readings, and more.