6/30/2015

INDIANA
HISTORICAL AMERICORPS PUBLIC ALLY
SOCIETY

Service Manual | Corinne Patterson

CONGRATULATIONS!
If youre reading this, that means you made through the highly competitive interview process for
Public Allies and you have landed at arguably one of the best placement sites of all time. I know its
still too soon for you to have a strong sense of what the other placements are like, but I know from
experience that it doesnt get much better than this. Heres why:

1. Location, location, location!

2. You get an entire office to yourself
3. Matt is the best supervisor you could possibly ask for
4. Public Programs is the place to be at IHS
5. This place is way cooler than I ever thought a museum could be
6. National History Day is a really neat program and Indianas is one of the great ones
7. You get to see students faces light up when this is all said and done
8. Youre the second Ally to ever serve here so there is a lot of room for flexibility in your role
9. You will have every opportunity to meet your required 1700 hours

Take a minute to celebrate the fact that youre hereits a big deal!

At this point, you might be wondering why youre reading this, so let me rewind and tell you a little bit
about my year. I spent my first month and a half familiarizing myself with NHD: reading everything I
could get my hands on (see: That Giant NHD Binder), studying the Contest Rule Book, checking out
student projects in every category, watching every webinar and Google Hangout NHD ever made,
exploring the main NHD website and other affiliates pages, you name it. Then, in late October, I
started my outreach to IPS. In retrospect, I wish I had taken the initiative to begin my outreach efforts
much sooner, but youll read more about that later. I spent most of November meeting with teachers,
trying to convince them to use NHD in their classrooms and by December, most of my time was
occupied with school visits and last-ditch efforts to get other Marion county teachers on board (read:
trying to meet my Outreach Target). Thats when things got difficult for me.

You see, Ive never worked with small humans. My professional background was in higher education
and, if everything went according to plan, I went running back at the end of my PA term. I also dont
babysit, have kids in my family, or hang out with many momsso 4th through 12th graders were a
complete mystery to me. I volunteered to help out with a ton of kid-friendly IHS programming early on
in my term (i.e. the Train, Big Draw, field trips) so I wasnt so much worried about interacting with
them/making them my friends but teaching them was a whole nother story.

I dont know what particular skills set you have coming into this, but I had to remind myself all the
time (and you should, too) that you were brought into this position for a reason. Maybe it was
because you have extensive experience lesson-planning and are well-versed in best practices for
working with underrepresented youth in primary and secondary education settings, but in the event
that you arentyoure walking in here with your own set of assets and its up to you to figure out how
to best utilize those to support the students and teachers youll be partnering with. *Whew*

Now that weve gotten that out of the way I wanted to find a way to streamline the NHD research
process and make the delivery of this program a little bit easier for you and new NHD teachers. So,
you get this Service Manual and hopefully it will help you make NHD happen.

I hope you have the best term ever!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. The Stuff Public Allies Doesnt Tell You
a. PISD, etc.
b. You Have the Power!
c. TSP
d. When Youre Feeling Down
e. Beyond Public Allies
II. Service Objectives: What Did I Just Read?
III. Weird IHS Stuff
a. Viva la Revolucin!
b. What is Business Casual?
c. The G: Drive
i. Attendance/Participation
ii. NHDI Folder
d. Marketing
IV. NHD Basics
a. Introduce Yourself to NHD
b. That Giant NHD Binder
c. Websites You Should Be Using
d. Research Like a Historian
V. Outreach
a. Email
b. Meetings
c. The Plan
VI. Social Media 101
a. Twitter
b. Instagram
VII. Corinnes Hopes and Dreams

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THE STUFF
PUBLIC
ALLIES
DOESNT
TELL YOU
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PISD, HOURS, etc.
Okay, so. The PISD. Even if you like the PISD now (because I LOVED it at the start of my term),
chances are its going to drive you up a wall by the end of your term. I know this is probably going
to sound obvious but just try to stay on top of it. Yes, you COULD put it off, wait for Sharon to
email you, put it off some more, and then ultimately grudgingly labor through it to submit it a
week late or you can track your hours daily (whether its in an Excel timesheet on your desktop
or every day before you leave in the PISD system) and you can keep an outline throughout the
month of what youve done toward each service objective. So that first idea is obviously brilliant,
but lets talk about the second one. Heres why its great:

This way, you dont forget all of the amazing stuff you do each month.
It will make writing your Service Reflections much easier if you already know everything
you want to write about.
Its not always going to be rainbows and butterflies. Celebrating successes as they
happen is going to prove to be hugely important to maintaining your morale throughout
the year. Youre going to be doing some really great work--be intentional about taking
time to recognize and honor those moments.

Since were talking about celebrating significant moments throughout your term, I want to
mention why those obnoxious Service Reflections are important and necessary and why you
should put a great deal of time and care into them. Reflection is underrated and underdone. Its
simply too easy to move through life, work, especially your term of service, without thinking
critically about your experiences--about how they shape you and how who you are and what you
believe profoundly impact them. Trust the process, but be critical of it. Not critical in the sense
that youre always looking for problems, but critical like analytical, curious, and engaged. With
that being said, I realize that not everyone is going to enjoy writing novels instead of monthly
Service Reflections like I did (at least until about March), but ask yourself, how do I reflect? Do
you like to talk it out? Create space to think it through in silence? Express your reflection process
creatively? If you dont like writing, thats cool! That outline we talked about--turn it into a couple
of sentences or a few short paragraphs to submit, but dont let your reflection process end
there.

Im almost done preaching, I promise.

This seems like the right time to talk about your hours. Heres my suggestion, take it or leave it:
get as many hours as you can at the start of your term. Yes, there is going to be plenty of time
for you to get hours in the spring, especially during the business of NHD season, and Im not
saying burn yourself out in the first few months, but steadily submit time logs with 90+ hours on
them. Theyre going to tell you to log 8.5 hours a day (and Im agreeing), but a lot of time logs are
going to have more than 10 work days on them anyways so getting at least 85 per time log
should be no sweat. This way, youre not stressing about hours come April and, if you really do
things right, you can hit the brakes *a little* at the end of your term. There are a ton of
programs at IHS in the fall and I suggesting volunteering yourself for as many of them as you
can. They may not be in your job description and depending on how your Service Objectives are
written, you might not even end up writing about them in your Service Reflections, but they will
help you build relationships here, give you practice working with diverse groups of people
(especially kids!), and, of course, count as easy hours.

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YOU HAVE THE POWER!
This is your term. No one tells you this enough, but you have the power to make sure you get
what you came here for. Whether were talking about Friday trainings, your own professional
development, TSP, or placement responsibilities if you feel like somethings missing or just not
right--speak up! Perfect example: Mid-way through my PA term, I realized how much I missed
facilitating workshops. I casually mentioned this to Sharon and she suggested that I submit a
proposal to facilitate one of our Friday trainings--on any topic I wanted, no less! And it turned out
to be the highlight of my term. Around this time, I was in the super-depressed stage, and who
knew how much of that could have been prevented had I advocated for myself early on. You
might be wondering, Why didnt you just ask earlier, Corinne? Because I didnt know I could. So
here I am, telling you, encouraging youno, demanding youto advocate for yourself. Figure out
what you want and make it happen. You have the added benefit at being at one of the most
badass (oops! Can I say badass?) placements in PA history and I can tell you with absolute
certainty that if you have a vision for your role, you will have the freedom to make it a reality. I
just realized how clich that sounds but Im sticking with it.

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TSP
So we do this TSP Final Reflection thing at the end of the year and one of the questions is,
What advice would you give future Allies beginning their own TSP? I dont remember anyone
giving me that advice from the previous Allies when I started my term so Im going to break that
down for you here. Im going to be straight up with you--my TSP was not the most stellar TSP in
our class or ever. Seriously. Our answer to, Of the teams accomplishments, what are you
most proud of? was the relationships we built and how proud we were of each other for keeping
it real (Im not even kidding). With that being said, I dont think that means we did TSP wrong
or that we failed or anything like that--Im genuinely proud of those things and Im a team
member for them. My point is--if every project your group tries falls through (like ours did) and
you walk away from this having learned some lessons about what it means to work in a team,
thats alright. I was such a micromanaging, control-hogging bully at the start of this because I
thought we had to literally transform the Far Eastside with this incredible, sustainable project
that gathered statewide attention in eight months. If you can do that, go for it! If you dont, thats
cool, too! Either waymake sure youre thinking critically about the community youve fostered
within your TSP team and your PA cohort and how that translates into the work youre doing in
other communities, whether it be at your placement, on service days, on your own time,
whatever. Do not underestimate the importance of learning how to be a thoughtful, engaged
community member.

So, I mentioned some advice courtesy of the Far Eastside Engagement Team (FEET)

Listen. To your fellow TSP members, the community members and partners (this means taking
the asset mapping seriously), and the program support from Public Allies. Once youve listened,
come up with a plan and see it through.

Make it your own. Be okay with all of your plans falling through but dont give up. Its not about
you. Its about serving a community and working in solidarity with its residents and stakeholders.

Dont take it personally. Get what you need out of it. If your proposed projects arent working out
or your group loses interest, dont let it get to you. Reframe your project. Ask yourselves: What
did you all come into this experience hoping to learn?; What type of experience would you like to
get? Answer these questions and design your TSP around that.

Partner with strong organizations. Find a way to support ongoing work in the community.
Partnering with a strong organization will only make that organization better and it will provide
you with a great educational hands-on experience.

Ask more questions.

I hope this helps. Best of luck to you and your fellow TSP members!

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WHEN YOURE FEELING DOWN
Wait, what?

This isnt about scaring you or making you regret your life decisions, but making sure that you
know that its part of the process before youre pissed off and someone tells you that its part of
the process and that feels totally paternalistic and condescending and then youre like I didnt
sign up for this????????

Okay, maybe thats just how I responded to it but, either way, lets talk about it now.

January was a really hard month for me. I was feeling completely unsupported by teachers while
watching their students struggle through a system that didnt give a damn about them; I dreaded
my school visits; I couldnt see the light at the end of the tunnel where all of these students
projects would magically come together; the end of the term seemed so far away, my PA cohort
hadnt quite clicked yet; I was tired all the time; I wasnt creating a life for myself in Indy outside
of PAit was all bad. And it wasnt until a big group of us went out for lunch (read: whisky) after
training one day that I realized that we were ALL in the same funk. Im not saying every persons
funk looked exactly like mine, but it was a thing. And we just werent talking about it.

When I talked to my mentor about it, she was like, Yupp. Thats part of the process. I was so
upset! Why didnt anyone warn me?! I dont know what made sharing these feelings seem so
taboo but my hope is that by telling you this, you can support your peers when January rolls
around and the cold weather starts getting to yall and your TSPs still havent done anything and
youre playing with the idea of dropping out and $5,600 doesnt seem like its going to make
that big of a difference anyways andyou get the point.

Those feelingsthey really are part of the process. Whether were talking about AmeriCorps or
service more generally it gets to you sometimes. And the best part about Public Allies (versus
other AmeriCorps programs) is that you have this entire community who you [hopefully] love to
endure it with. Be grateful for it. Take advantage of it. Honor it.

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BEYOND PUBLIC ALLIES
I know, I knowyou just started your term of service so why are we already talking about what
happens when it ends? The answer: You shouldn't take a break from thinking about what happens
next. Yes, you want to celebrate making it here (and you should). Sure, you don't want to detract from
your PA experience by living ten months in the future. But job hunting is a long and tedious process,
and I highly warn against waiting until Public Allies starts offering their resume development trainings
for you to start thinking about your next move. You probably will want to wait until March to start
applying for jobs, so what can you do between then and now? Here's a few ideas:

1. Start working on your resumeseveral versions of it if you're really ambitious. You have your
position description so you have a general idea of what you'll be doing at IHS. Since resumes
are living documents, you can easily update it as you move through your term. If you start
working on your resumes early, it will give you plenty of time to send it out to other folks for
feedback (mentors, PA staff, friends, HR folks at IHS or elsewhere, or even me!) and continue
to improve it throughout your term. There's nothing worse than waiting until the most perfect
job is posted to start putting together your resume and cover letter. You absolutely want to
have at least four people look over both of those documents before you start submitting
them. I thought that was going overboard the first time I heard it but I ended up having at
least ten people give me resume feedback between January and April. I unfortunately
submitted my application materials to ~15 jobs before I actually ended up with a 'final'
version of my resume, and I wonder how my chances of being hired were negatively impacted
by submitting those earlier versions.

2. Start job hunting, even if you're not applying for anything just yet. What kind of jobs do you
think you're interested in? Where are those jobs posted? (Charitable Advisors, indeed.com,
higheredjobs.com, etc.)? What are the desired qualifications for those positions and how can
you start building resumes that frame your experiences around them? Where can you find
salary information for those positions? It may seem like a lot of work to do to not even bother
to apply for anything yet but when the time comes for you to really start looking for a job
(which is a full-time job all by itself), you'll have a system in place and it will be a lot less
overwhelming.

3. Seek professional development opportunities and feedback at your placement, through

Public Allies, and in the Indianapolis community. My favorite part about serving at IHS was
the full-time staff's commitment to my professional development. Every time I had a question
about workplace norms, how to handle certain situations (at IHS, with teachers/students, in
my TSP, etc.), whateverI asked. Don't be afraid to ask questions. There are a lot of great
reasons to become a Public Ally but one of the most important reasons, in my mind, is to
develop those foundational professional skills that will make you successful beyond Public
Allies.

4. Find somewhere to volunteer your time that has no affiliation with PA, that you can't get
hours for, that fills a hole in your PA experience, and/or fulfills something you're passionate
about. For example, I attended monthly Domestic Violence Network meetings throughout my
term and tried my best to be a #scenesupporter for the Indianapolis arts scene. Don't forget
the value of living a life of service. There's always something to be gained from our service, of
course (don't get caught up in the savior complex)but there's something sticky about when
it's tied to a paycheck. Do something because you care.

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One last piece of advice: save up your Personal Days (at least one) for when the time comes for you
to start interviewing. IHS is extremely flexible and will let you flex time when possible, particularly for
interviews, but if you have a chance at a job and they're only conducting interviews on Fridays in
April, you'll want to have the comfort of knowing that you can take a day to ensure your employment
at the end of your term of service.

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SERVICE OBJECTIVES: WHAT DID I JUST READ?
This is going to be short and sweet. One of the first things you should do once you get settled is
request a meeting with Matt to talk through your Service Objectives just to make sure youre all
on the same page.

PA language is different than IHS language and Service Objectives are written in PA language
what that all comes down to is that you need to figure out what the IHS language is for each of
those Service Objectives and make sure thats how youre explaining what youre doing every
month. During your Site Visit in late September/early October, youll confirm all of that with your
Program Manager and it should be smooth sailing from there.

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WEIRD
IHS
STUFF
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VIVA LA REVOLUCIN!
I really had no idea what to expect when I took this position. I was like, Okay. This is a museum.
Chances are its super conservative and Im going to have to be on my best behavior and wear
stockings and shit. Nonononono. That is not the case!

This place is kind of in the middle of a revolution. Youre going to hear a lot about staff turnover
and administrative shifts and the bottom line is that IHS is pretty cool as far as museums go.
The YATs (You Are There exhibits) have explored all kinds of controversial history topics, IHS
kicked off Indianas first-ever push to collect LGBTQ+ histories in Indiana, and this place is full of
all kinds of cool people (ESPECIALLY Public Programs). Theres still some tension between the
old and the new (see Marketing) and youve got to keep in mind who keeps the money rolling
into this place but all-in-all things are leaning toward the side of progress here.

What does this mean for you? I dont know you, so I cant really say. But what it meant for me
was that I could be outspoken about injustice (particularly about how I saw it playing out across
race lines within IPS), I could be out (yes, like out of the closet), and I could ask tough questions
about who we were looking to serve with our programming and how we were going to do it.

Now, I lived on NHD island and you very well could, too, so I didnt feel like I could be as critical
about programming and outreach in general but I could be very vocal about the specific program
I was working on. And Matthes awesome. Dont be afraid to share your experiences, provide
feedback, and make suggestions for the future (and present) of NHD in Indiana.

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WHAT IS BUSINESS CASUAL?
Its a trap.

With that being said, Im going to tell you what it means at IHS and, more specifically, what it
means for you (particularly when youre working with students). This (everything in purple) is
straight from an email from top:

Here's the policy:

The employee handbook asks that all employees dress in a way that is appropriate for
their jobs. As the ECE department is often asked to meet with the public or attend
meetings with little to no notice, this means members of the ECE department should be
dressed in business casual attire.
For men, business casual means trousers, khakis, sweaters or shirts with collars. For
women, business casual means trousers, khakis, knee-length skirts, blouses, sweaters
or shirts with a collar.
o Business casual means no athletic wear, shorts or leggings as pants.
o Appropriate jeans may be worn on any day in which there are no meetings with
outside-IHS members, so long as you are wearing a business casual or IHS-logo
top.
The dress code may also be altered with prior approval for days in which tasks are
occurring that require altered dress (e.g., preparation for a conference, cleaning, working
with fieldtrips).

This means that...

Wear jeans on any day that you aren't in meetings with non-IHS staff. Just wear a top that
allows you to go to a meeting, if a sudden one is called. No "ahead of time" permission
needed.
If you're up on the 5th floor climbing around dust and dirt, please wear whatever you feel
comfortable in, as it will get dirty and/or you are up and down off the floor often.
If you're working with students, feel free to wear clothes that facilitate those interactions.
Yes, this means you can wear jeans! Match the top to whatever you feel fits that school's
climate--some schools are more formal than others. Or, make it easy and wear the IHS
logo shirt.

I wore jeans pretty much any day I was in the office unless I had an outside meeting or a
program that required otherwise. Just scope out what other people are wearing as youre getting
settled in. Even though ECE is the only department with a dress code, its still pretty chill.

A lot of the IPS schools have dress codes (usually khakis and a polo), so while I totally
recommend wearing jeans when youre working with students, its also really important to match
their dress codes. When Im going on a school visit and Im not sure what the dress code is, I will
wear a pair of slacks and your IHS polo or a nice(-ish) shirt. If youre going anywhere with Matt,
ask what hes wearing and try to match him.

If youre working IHS programs, just make sure to ask what you should be wearing beforehand.

I think that covers it. When in doubt, ask!

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THE G: DRIVE
There is so much *stuff* on the G: drive. Including a bunch of stuff that I started (read: didnt
finish), or threw together on the fly.

Heres how to find the important stuff:

YOU!
G: Drive > NHDI > ECE AmeriCorps Public Ally
IHS (Accounting Forms, Travel Expense Reports).
NHDI Content (This is where all of the good stuff is at)
NHDI Outreach (Contact sheets for IPS, less useful contact sheet for MSD, list of Title I
schools)
NHDI Twitter (schedules, sample tweets, Twitter contest)
TWA (Im working on this instead of finishing that soooo.)
Timesheet, etc.

NHD Pictures
G: Drive > ECE > ECE Photos > NHD _______ (Favorites, March 21 2015, State 2015)

Attendance
G: Drive > Attendance > Education > ECE Attendance 2015

NHDI Stuff (PDFs, Special Awards templates, Tune Up, etc.)

G: Drive > NHDI > NHDI 2015

That should cover the basics. Spend some time exploring the G: Drive. Theres a ton of really
great stuff in there (a lot thats been forgotten, see Defunct Programs). Luckily, we did a G:
Drive clean-up during my term so its much easier to navigate now.

Theres also the P: Drive (I never used it), the Library Archive (I dont think I was supposed to
have access to this), and your Home drive (H: Drive).

Save everything to your Home drive that you arent saving to the G: Drive. If your computer
crashes, the H: Drive will remain intact.

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MARKETING
Marketing-approved materials are pretty much above your pay grade.

Ill explain: everything and its mother have to be approved by marketing if you plan on
distributing it widely. So, dont make things to distribute widely (or just be pretty low-key about
it). All that stuff in the NHDI Content folder? Not Marketing-approved. This Service Manual?
Nope. Handbills for contests? We just didnt ask. Rule of thumb? Do first, apologize later.

Ive also had free reign with the social media accounts so unless someone tells you otherwise,
dont stress about that content either.

Other weird marketing stuff you should know? Approved fonts: Franklin Gothic Book &
Garamond. This is only included in here so you dont have to ask Matt all the time like I did.

Okaynow for the real reason that theres a Marketing section. Remember earlier where I talked
about a revolution thats happening here? Well, Marketing & Development kind of ran this place
for years and now all of these people have been hired who are really shaking things up and
appealing to new audiences (read: not [rich] grandparents and their grandchildren). You are part
of the effort to reach new underserved populations. So theres a bit of inter-office tension
especially when it comes to whose programming gets promoted/funded.

Again, above your pay grade.

If all of this is above your pay grade, why am I telling you all about it? Because I had Callie (best,
most well-informed intern ever) and you might not. Let this guide be your Callie.

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 NHD
BASICS
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INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO NHD
Hopefully this Service Manual is a good start, but where do you go from here? First, check out the
That Giant NHD Binder that's outlined in the next section, then explore the websites listed under
Website You Should Be Using. Then Matt's probably going to ask you to make your very own NHD
project for the exhibit board activity. Do this. I can say that, because I didn't do it and, in retrospect, it
would have made the whole process a lot smoother. It will really give you sense of what goes into
these projects, how to assemble them, and how to eventually work with students as they navigate
the same processes. During the time that you're working on that, you'll probably be conducting
outreach and following Matt on school visits, at which point you're just going to have to dive in. As
long as there is a Public Ally in this role, or even when it expands into a larger mentorship program,
the folks who are working with students are going to be doing so with a piecemeal vision of what final
projects and contests look like. And that's okay. That newness brings something to the table,
especially when it's paired with the extensive research you're going to do on NHD to familiarize
yourself with the program. Even as we reviewed students' projects for Nationals, I had never seen the
competition at the national-level (except for the Student Project Examples available online).
Regardless, your experience and input are important and valuableand they're enough to support
students.

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THAT GIANT NHD BINDER
There is so much good stuff in that binder! Stuff that I should have utilized more, stuff that I
want to help teachers utilize more, and stuff that I hope you find helpful.

Theres a table of contents but Im willing to bet it only makes sense to me so Im going to try to
break that down for you here:

1. General info
Teacher Materials: You can see how the teacher materials changed from the
2013-2014 program year to 2014-2015. Putting together and distributing the
User Manual was a pretty big deal for Matt (I mean, look how much prettier it is!).
i. Note that new NHD teachers only get this User Manual, a poster, and a
Rule Book to implement the program at their schools. Part of my
challenge (and yours) will be providing them with additional content to
make the process smoother.
Affiliate Coordinators Manual: This should give you a better sense of Matts role
as the Affiliate Coordinator for Indiana.

2. NHD stats
Results from 2013-2014 End of the Year Teacher Survey, Results from the NHD
National Program Evaluation, Minnesota & Indiana Student Outcomes
infographics, 2014-2015 IPS Student Survey Results
i. NHD works! This language is going to appeal to teachers/administrators
so it is important that you can speak it.

3. Topic selection
The Indiana topics are always useful, but the Topic Narrowing Worksheet (from
the User Manual) and 2015 Sample Topics List (from the Theme Book) are both
for the Leadership & Legacy theme. There *should* be new versions of both of
these by the time you come into your role.

4. Content
This is where most of the good stuff is at. There is a lot of great stuff in here that
we should be using with teachers, whether we distribute them as a guide of our
own or just use them as needed. It would be really great to have an Indiana-
specific A Student Guide to National History Day

5. Criteria
My over-highlighted copy of the 2015 Contest Rule Book, a FAQ sheet, and
Judging Sheets.
i. I highly recommend reading the new Contest Rule Book and Theme Book
as you familiarize yourself with NHD. There are a lot of rules for each
category and youre probably not going to memorize all of them but just
make sure to always keep a Rule Book handy. I especially recommend
using and distributing the Judging Sheets (also included in this section) to
help simplify the rule requirements.

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6. IDOE/Common Core
Are you from Indiana? Do you have an education background? Regardless of how
you answered these questions, its probably going to be helpful for you to
familiarize yourself with education standards and current debates on a National
level and in Indiana. Indiana has its own unique set of problems (having rejected
Common Core) and its important for you to understand these well enough to
know what the teachers and students that you are working with are dealing with.
Read whats in the binder, play around on Google (see: Glenda Ritz), watch the
live-streaming DOE meetings, ask people around the office, do whatever it takes
so you know what youre walking into.

7. Webinars
I watched SO MANY webinars when I started my term, old and new. You should,
too! You can count them as hours. You can get plugged into these conversations.
Its wayyyy better than reading. And since a lot of them are interactive, youll get a
sense of the kinds of questions teachers and students will be asking. All of the
old webinars are available online (see Websites You Should Be Using) and if
you sign up to be on the NHD teacher listserv youll get email reminders for all of
the new webinars in the fall. Theyre usually in the evenings so I would come into
the office, work my normal hours, and then watch the webinars from home while I
was cooking dinner (or whatever you do after you get out of work) just for some
extra hours. Im choosing to leave my webinar notes in this binder in case you
can, by some miracle, read my handwriting and/or find them helpful.

8. Working with Students

I wish this section was bigger. I spent so much of my time during my first month
of my term researching NHD that I didnt really have the chance to focus on
learning how to work with students. On top of that, I didnt really know where to
start. Helping with fieldtrips and working IHS events really helped me develop
those skills, but I like having theory to back up my practice and I didnt get as
much of that as I would have liked. There are a lot of teachers in this hall, so pick
their brains! Maybe youre an expert with kids and have teaching experience so
you dont need the extra help, but if you do, there are plenty of resources and
opportunities at your disposal to help you feel confident the first time you walk
into a classroom.

9. Twitter contests
So we did Twitter contests. And they werent a huge success, so I dont know if
youll be doing them again. But, in the event that theres some form of social
media contest, youll have access to all of the prompts we used, the prompts that
were used in the Twitter contest at the National level, and the criteria that was
used to judge the winners.

10. Classroom presentations and workshops

This is where the rest of the good stuff is hiding. Matts 2015 classroom
presentation (youll have the freedom to create your own
slideshow/website/whatever if you start doing classroom presentations of your
own), an activity I created for the 2015 theme (I definitely think something similar

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 could be done with the 2016 theme), activities I found online, and my (super
detailed) mini-lessons from our first-ever NHDI Tune-Up Mini-lessons.

11. Twitter analytics + schedules

All of the Twitter analytics for my entire term.

Matt asked me if I thought the information contained in this binder was worth holding on to, and I
think it is. Feel free to add to it, dump it all out, reorganize it, consolidate it, create a digital file with
it, whatever you think is best. I just didn't want to drop all of that information in the recycling bin and
force you to redo all of the digging that I did at the start of my term.

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WEBSITES YOU SHOULD BE USING
This is less about websites you should be using than it is about websites you should be telling
students and teachers to use. This is a short list but its the list of websites I introduced in every
classroom at the start of the program. Im not going to say that everything they need is contained in
these sites but I *will* say that a student could put together a pretty incredible project if they
actually take advantages of these resources.

1. NHD Student project examples: http://www.nhd.org/contest-affiliates/examples/

I saw far too many projects last year, especially at Gambold Prep (now Shortridge IB)
that didnt move beyond the level of research to project presentation. Im talking
about students pasting their annotated bibliographies on exhibit boards, treating
their websites like lists of Docs (its an IB thing), or papers written like literary
analyses. Now, I know I showed these students project examples and I think if our
timelines in those schools had been longer with set deadlines, we could have
prevented a lot of these shortcomings. Nevertheless, make sure theyre looking at
project examples. Not just looking at them, but thinking about whats done well with
them. And how to take their projects to that level.

2. NHD Webinars: http://www.nhd.org/classroom-connection/google-hangouts-and-webinars/

You might remember me saying you should be using these, too. If students are
serious about their projects, they need to be watching these webinars. Teachers, too.
Especially when you are working with new teachers, encourage them to watch a few
webinars (particularly Im a New NHD Teacher HELP!). A lot of weight fell on me
last year to run these programs in schools when teachers could have been doing a lot
on their ends to execute an effective program. I float back and forth between thinking
we need to give teachers a step-by-step guide to do this program and knowing that
they are the experts in the classroom and we should not be responsible for holding
their hands. Harsh, I know, but a lot of the stress I dealt with last year could have
been prevented if teachers had simply taken ownership of the program. The
resources are out there and you have the tools to point them in the right directions.

3. NHD Conducting Research: http://www.nhd.org/entering-contest/#toggle-id-2

Get your students off of Google. There are so many websites listed on this page for
students to utilize so theres really no excuse for their bibliographies to be a run-down
of Wikipedia, Bibliography.com, and the third site that comes up when they type their
topic into Google. The next section, Research Like a Historian, isnt the most helpful
section in here, Ill admit. But here is a gigantic list of websites that historians do use,
and you should start practicing with as well. Some of them are kind of useless or
difficult to navigate, but for your students with obscure topics, they might be relevant.

4. Library of Congress (especially Analyzing Primary Sources worksheets:

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/guides.html), Chronicling America,
National Archives and Records Administration, Newspaper Archive (you can access this for
free at IHS, and the IHS databases (especially promote these).

5. NHD in Minnesota Project Resources: http://education.mnhs.org/historyday/project-

resources
Youll soon learn that Minnesota is like an NHD god. I mean, theyre office is more
fully staffed than the National office. Its kind of absurd. As a result, they have the

22
best resources and we should be taking advantage of them every step of the way
until we get on that level. Anyways, there are a ton of great worksheets on here that
you can use with students or suggest to your teachers that they should be using.

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RESEARCH LIKE A HISTORIAN
I literally have no idea what this means.

Just kidding. Kind of. But really, I had no idea how historians researched when I came into this
program. My academic background is in discourse analysis and theoretical knowledge, and that's all
great but kind of useless when it comes to working with 4th through 12th graders to put together
history projects. What I'm trying to say is, regardless of what you're background is coming into this,
there are plenty of resources at your disposal to prepare you for the work that you'll be doing for the
next ten months. You'll get some practice when you start working on the exhibit activity, but the best
way to learn about how to research like a historian is to talk to some of them. As luck would have it,
you're surrounded by them. Talking to some of the full-time staffers might seem a little intimidating,
but the two Public History interns in ECE (provided they still have them) are a great place to start. Ask
them questions like: How is historical research different from other kinds of research?; What's the
best way I can prepare myself to help students research like historians?; Can you show me some
places to start (especially when you're working on your exhibit activity)?; What questions should I be
asking when I'm analyzing primary resources (see also: Library of Congress Analyzing Primary
Sources worksheets)? There are a lot of history nerds in the building and history folks (not
surprisingly) love to talk about history. On top of preparing to help students with their NHD projects, it
will also be a great opportunity to build relationships. Have fun with it!

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OUTREACH

25
EMAIL
Chances are you'll be starting your outreach via email soon. First, talk to Matt about the email
strategy. Last year, I emailed all of the Literacy Coaches at IPS. Theres a really great spreadsheet I
put together with all of that information on it and/or you can just go to the IPS directory
(http://www.myips.org/domain/401) and search for Coach under Title contains to get all of
those contacts information but Im not sure thats the best approach. I think there are two options:
1. Reach out to all of the Coaches and ask them to forward the information along to their SS
teachers, or 2. Email the teachers directly. You and Matt can figure that out. Also, some tips to
remember:

1. Proofread.
2. Make sure your information is accurate (teachers & school names line up, etc.).
3. Use Bcc: any time youre sending out mass emails. Please. People take it kind of personally
when you put their business out there.

Something I really wanted when I began this process was a template that I could send out to
teachers/administrators, so I put together what I think is a pretty solid outreach letter for IPS. Don't
feel obligated to use this, and definitely feel free to make it your own.

Good afternoon,

My name is ____________. I am an AmeriCorps Public Ally currently serving at the Indiana

Historical Society. We sponsor National History Day in Indiana here at IHS and I am reaching
out to invite your teachers and students to participate in the program.

Just a little background information on the program: National History Day engages students
in extended research projects on a history topic of their choice related to a yearly theme (this
years is Exploration, Encounter, Exchange) and gives them the opportunity to present their
work in a variety of formats based on their interests (paper, exhibit, website, performance or
documentary). There is also the option for them to present those projects at a regional
contest on ____________ where they have the opportunity to move on to the state or even
national level.

We like to think of National History Day as a framework. I would like to emphasize the
flexibility of the program. It is very much a teacher-driven program in the sense that as few or
as many of your students can participate, you can set your own timelines, and we urge you
to utilize the program to fit your needs.

We had great success with National History Day in four IPS schools last year and we would
be more than happy to connect you directly with those teachers for ideas on how to best
implement the program in your classroom.

If you have any questions, please dont hesitate to ask. If youre interested in meeting to
discuss the possibility of bringing NHD to your school, please let me know a few of the best
times that you would be available to meet. Im looking forward to hearing back from you!

Best,

____________

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You could add a link in here for them to check out the NHD main page or student project examples
but I think its better to keep it simple when youre making first contact. My first email had all kinds
of links and data and other nonsense that you can throw at them when you go to your first outreach
meeting. No matter what you decide to change, make sure to mention that we had successfully
implemented this program in IPS schools last year.

Something I didnt do last year that I really hope you do is send follow-up emails a month after you
send out that first round of emails. These folks are busy. They are under a ton of pressure. Dont tell
them I said this, but they are really bad a reading and responding to emails. Check back in with
them. Stay on their radar. After a second round of emails, I dont think it would hurt to call them
directly. If we really want to build capacity with IPS we need to be a little pushier than weve been to-
date.

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MEETINGS
Youll get the opportunity to follow Matt along on an outreach meeting or two before you have to go
at it alone so youll pick up on the basics then, but Ill give you a run-down here. When you go to an
outreach meeting, your goals are to introduce the program, provide them with our Teacher Materials,
and make sure they know what we can offer them. I suggest talking along Teacher Materials (poster,
User Manual, Contest Rule Book, Theme Book) and the student surveys iconographic thats on the G:
drive (ask Matt). That iconographic has a lot of the information on it that teacher like to hear and it
will help you with your talking points (because know one is expecting you to remember those
specifics).

Talking points:

1. Basics: Global program, 54 affiliates worldwide, over 5,000 students compete in Indiana
every year at regional contests where they advance to state then nationals in D.C. (we took a
student from Arsenal Tech last year)
2. Students consistently outperform their peers on standardized testing, meets English and
Social Studies standards
3. Teacher-driven: in-class as part of curriculum, extra credit or substitute for final project, after-
school club; students can participate in the regional contests but its not required; teachers
can set any limitations (exhibits only, American History topics only, etc.)
4. YOU!: IHS brought on an AmeriCorps specifically to support IPS teachers and students
(introductory presentation, school visits, one-on-one mentorship, etc.)

And thats it. At this point, theyre either in or theyre out. Send a thank you email after you meet with
them where you suggest setting up a time for an in-class presentation introducing the program. If you
dont hear back from them after a week or so, send a follow-up to feel them out and see where
theyre at.

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THE PLAN
A flexible, ten-month guide to your term of service.

1. September: first round of outreach emails, outreach meetings, school presentations

2. October: second round of outreach emails, follow-up calls, outreach meetings, school
presentations
3. November: outreach meetings, school presentations, school visits
4. December-February: school visits
5. February-March: school visits, contests!
6. April: state contest prep
7. May: schedule out social media through October, meet with Nationals qualifiers for project
feedback
8. June: wrap up!

In your downtime: schedule social media (try to stay a month ahead), find some kind of content to
develop (Teacher Guide?), general IHS programming, other duties as assigned

This is the most basic, skin-and-bones schedule I could possibly provide. Its *almost* useless but it
should give you a rough idea of what the next ten months look like.

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SOCIAL
MEDIA
101
30
TWITTER
So, heres the thingI took on the social media accounts without anyone asking me to which means
now youre stuck with them unless Marketing takes them up (unlikely) so I tried to make it as easy as
possible to pick them up. Im not underestimating your intelligence or capabilities, but I wanted to
make sure that if the next Ally wasnt as passionate about social media as I am that it wouldnt
become a huge burden. If, however, you are ready to revamp my social media strategy and want to
throw all of this out the window, go for it! The NHD in Indiana digital world is your oyster.

Twitter schedule. I made a month-by-month Twitter schedule with 1-3 tweets per day relevant to
where were at in the contest season. Along with the Twitter schedule, there is also a list of Sample
Tweets on the G: drive that you can copy and paste into TweetDeck. Dont worry about repeating
these. The list is long enough that they shouldnt have to repeat them for 2-3 months and no one is
watching the Twitter account closely enough for the overlap to matter. The only tweets youll have to
come up will be the #NHDI Student Spotlights (and those should go on Instagram and be cross-
posted to Twitter) and by you I mean Matt so stay on him about these. Youll only need a Student
Spotlight once a month with a picture and a brief bio. But please dont let these be all youre
tweeting. Our followers love pictures, so try to take them when youre doing school visits, at
workshops, Tune-Ups, whatever. Same deal, post those to Instagram and cross-post them to Twitter.
If you feel like youve been putting too many pictures on Instagram, feel free to put the overflow on
Twitter only. Does that make sense?

General rule of thumb: if students are in our building or at our contests, you can take pictures. Any
other time, backs of their heads only. Cover our asses kind of thing. You can go back through the
media to see the kind of pictures I posted for a general sense of what I mean.

Last year I used #NHDI2015 and #NHDI for everything but youll notice that all of these tweets drop
the I. The only exception might be the Student Spotlights since I envision those being Indiana
students only. Ive decided that well get more reach if we use the general hashtag, and I found that
a lot of students/teachers/contest-goers were using that instead of our hashtag already anyways.
Matt may or may not agree.

I used TweetDeck to schedule posts ahead of time and follow the lists I split the accounts we follow
up in. Theres also Hootsuite but I like TweetDeck a lot more. You just have to log in with
@NHDIndiana (password: Misty1816) and all of the scheduled tweets should be there waiting for
you. Its pretty easy to use, has a nice interface, and Ive never had any major issues with it.

Speaking of the lists, I added everyone we follow to lists to make it easier to keep track of them. It
also helps favorite/retweet relevant tweets without having to sift through thousands of tweets. And
the important lists (Short List which is NHD accounts & Indiana schools) are on the TweetDeck
interface so you can just scroll through those every few days to favorite/retweet whatever seems
important. Whenever you follow someone new, just go to their Twitter page, click on the little gear,
select Add or remove from lists, and youre set. P.S. I dont think Matt uses the lists so you might
have to stay up on that, too. Or just make sure he reads this.

Now for the analytics. This part is pretty easy. Just go to

https://analytics.twitter.com/user/NHDIndiana/home, select View All Tweet Activity underneath
the featured Top Tweet which will take you to a 28-day summary. Change Last 28 Days in the top
right corner to the month you want to look at and youll get a month-long summary with a tweet-by-
tweet breakdown. So what do you do with this? Heres the email template I sent to Matt every month
summarizing our social media activity:

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 Twitter analytics for Month

General:
__ link clicks (up/down __ from previous month)
__ new followers (up/down __ from previous month)
__K impressions (up/down __K from previous month), __ average per day (up/down
__ per day from previous month)
__ retweets (down __ from previous month)
__ favorites (down __ from previous month)
__ engagements(down __ from previous month)

Whats popular?:
Contest photos (its always photos)

Looking ahead:
Dont let our social media accounts die!

Instagram analytics for Month

General:
__ new followers (__ total)
__ likes

Whats popular?
This will be for you to decide.

Looking ahead:
How are we going to gather analytics for Instagram?

All of the information you need for this email will be on the Twitter analytics page except
Engagements, which (of course) is the number IHS really cares about. So heres the annoying part:
you have to add up the number of engagements for each individual tweet to get the cumulative
number for the month (make sure to look at Tweets and replies). Maybe Twitter analytics will step
it up by the time you come into this role but in the event that they dont It worked better for me to
print out the analytics for each month instead of scrolling through the numbers on the computer
screen, but maybe your eyes are more tolerable of that than mine are.

There you have it. Happy tweeting!

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INSTAGRAM
Youll notice that the Instagram account is pretty undeveloped compared to the Twitter account.
Thats because I spent a good deal of my term begging to sign up. So please, please, please make
some magic happen on Instagram! Youll see on the social media schedule that Ive already
designated a Student Spotlight to run on Instagram (and cross-post to Twitter) once a month, but
other than that you basically have free reign (not that you dont have free reign with everything else).

There are already #tbts scheduled on Twitter, but you could start cross-posting them in October
(which, in retrospect, I should have already done) so that were posting something at least once each
week. You might have some ideas about how often we should be posting on Instagram... I was
thinking 1-4 times per month should cut it since Instagram moves at a different pace than Twitter.
Whats probably the easiest thing to do is post pictures from behind the scenes and/or at school
visits (as discussed in the Twitter section) when the opportunities come up.

Iconosquare (http://iconosquare.com/) might be your best bet for tracking our Instagram analytics. I
only got to use Iconosquare once for the month of June but it looks like as long as you log in on the
last day of the month and check the Rolling Month Details under the Statistics tab, you should be
able to get all of the necessary data.

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CORINNES
HOPES AND
DREAMS

34
My hopes and dreams mostly involve seeing all of the magic you make with this opportunity. Id like
to see our capacity build so that this position could be expanded into a full-time role. I would love it if
Matts vision for a sustainable mentorship program is fully realized. I hope that our social media
presence doesnt die upon my departure from this role. I would like it if we had a IHS start-up guide
for new teachers equipped with timelines, workshops, and good/bad project examples. And I hope
that when you have hopes and dreams, you can make them happen or, at the very least, pave the
way for the next Ally to do so.

One last thing Im here if you need me. I know you probably have an alum mentor, but if you have
questions about IHS stuff, or just AmeriCorps stuff in general, dont hesitate to contact me:

Corinne Patterson
(513) 635-7175
pattercc@gmail.com

Good luck!

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