The National History Day (or "NHS" as they're now referring to themselves in the documentation, sounds much less geeky, doesn't it?) materials arrived yesterday. A bit more than a dozen senior-level papers I have to read & critique before next month's judging. I need to get myself an eraser that *doesn't* leave a filthy red smear on paper when I try to clean off an ill-advised or unintelligible comment.

This year's subject theme, in case you missed it when I first heard about it late last fall, is "Taking a Stand in History". What do you think the chances are that one of the papers would be about William F. Buckley standing athwart history? Yeah, me neither.

[Pre-judging snark deleted in case the kids or their parents are googling]

I suppose I shouldn't be too loose about the papers before the kids have their say in defense of their work. But people! Don't quote from Encarta! Please! Especially when you've real secondary sources listed in your bibliography!