Alexandria Smith, a rising seventh-grade student at George Washington Middle School has won the top prize in the State for her History Day Presentation.
Alexandria Smith as Alice Paul
Alex won the Outstanding Entry for Junior Division across State of Virginia at the National History Day Competition for her script and costume portraying American Woman’s Rights Advocate Alice Paul.
We have routinely produced wonderful projects reflecting the various themes of National History Day and we regularly produce winners. However, Alexandria’s accomplishment represents the pinnacle of achievement and we are honored to have her as a student. I love her project and I believe it represents an important shift in the way we instruct students; as teachers move into the role of facilitator, and students produce quality work and perform amazing interest based projects,” said Jesse Mazur, George Washington Middle School Principal.
Alex came across the project idea while she was surfing on line about ‘people forgotten in history.’ Alice Paul matched the 2017 National History Day Competition theme of ‘Taking a Stand in History’ perfectly.
She created a one-man play, wrote a script and acted as Alice Paul to tell her story.
I have always enjoyed acting. I just felt that I connected with Alice immediately and could identify with her. It wasn’t about me, it was about Alice Paul. I was a function of her and I wanted to portray her properly. It was a big blessing I got this far. All I wanted was an A for the project,” Alex said.
Alex’s love for acting not only brings enjoyment but also allows her to express herself. In this project, she was able to combine her two loves – a love of history and acting. She was nervous to perform at first, but quickly resolved her nervousness. She developed the idea, script, costume and props all by herself, with support from her History teacher, Melinda Snow.
Alex went on to perform at the Regional and State level winning first place overall in her category, individual performance as a sixth grader.