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Another Guest, Different Strand
January 30, 2008

I Want This Blog to Be a Home For All Nonfiction Lovers, So
Have Invited Will Fitzhugh here to tell you about his work with teenagers and nonfiction:

After working in the Social Studies department at the HS
in Concord, Massachusetts for ten years, I decided to
start a quarterly journal for the history research papers
of HS students in the English-speaking world. The Concord
Review has now published 802 papers by HS students from
44 states and 34 other countries. The idea was to "Teach
by Example"—inspiring students with the exemplary work
of their peers (www.tcr.org).

I am sorry to see that some people who say that instruction in Reading
allows them no time for History do not consider that in teaching
Reading they could have students read some History. In addition,
I regret that people debate whether students should read one nonfiction book
or none, when they could easily ask students to read one book a
month...

Since 1987, when I started The Concord Review, I have found that
the old truism that students will rise to the challenge proves out.
I began by thinking that this, the only journal in the world for the
academic papers of high school students (www.tcr.org), would get
essays of 4,000-words, and eleven essays would take 110 pages.

The HS authors (from 35 countries so far) have consistently exceeded my expectations.
The longest issue so far was 285 pages, and the longest essay was 22,000 words,
but there have been many first-rate 8,000-word history research papers, too.

Email me at: fitzhugh@tcr.org, and I will be happy to
send you pdf files of some of our Emerson Prize winners.


Will Fitzhugh
Founder, The Concord Review

Posted by Marc Aronson on January 30, 2008 | Comments (0)