By Shan Yonamine
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After extensive research through primary sources, Junior Lisa Grandinetti was able to give new insight on her National History Day (NHD) topic unlike any other previous works. This allowed for her documentary entitled “Taking Down a Beast; Using Diplomatic Strategies to end Apartheid,” to place nationally at the 2010-2011 NHD competition held in Washington D.C. from June 12 to 16.
“(Going to nationals) was really exciting because I didn’t really expect to go that far and then being there with all those students is just really like humbling because it makes me realize that everyone like worked as hard as I did and there were like really impressive projects,” stated Grandinetti.
Having and uncommon topic, Grandinetti had to overcome unique challenges to make everything come together properly. “What I sensed from just observation was (that she had difficulty) identifying the critical elements cause she only had 10 minutes. That was a challenge making sense of that series of events,” stated Social Studies Teacher Amy Perruso. Fellow contestant, Junior Megan Maderia elaborated saying, “A lot of kids our age don’t know about South African Apartheid … she presented the information in a different way by focusing on student protests as a different strategy.”
Other problems that Grandinetti ran into were more related to her category then her topic, “I really hated watching my documentary over and over just getting the little kinks out, because I, it changes a lot throughout the process but at the same time I just saw the same thing over and over and that got really irritating,” she explained.
At first, research on her topic was difficult being that there wasn’t any pre-existing works pertaining to her topic. “(Grandinetti’s) project when we first talked about it in the beginning of the year was fairly nebulous and she didn’t really have a way of thinking about it but I think that as she started to talk to people that were involved it became more clear for her,” recalled Perusso. Through connections made by Perruso, Grandinetti was able to Skype with people involved in the apartheid movement and include those conversations in her documentary.
Her extensive research through these sources allowed Grandinetti to grasp this concept and make sense of it in a way that had no one had done before. This acted in her benefit as she placed 10th the national competition. “I felt really good,” recalled Grandinetti, “I freaked out.”
The results were projected to the contestants on a television screen. “I didn’t even get the full impact yet because I had to watch the screen as it went through each one and then as soon as I saw my title I didn’t even believe it at first,” she recalled. “I started realizing it and I screamed and ran out of the building looking for someone that I knew to hug.”
Grandinetti hopes to continue participating in NHD through her senior year and plans to enter in the documentary category again, as she feels this is the category she strongest in.
