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***image1***Students spent a day citing precedent and arguing greatness May 27 at Kaiserslautern High School’s first annual Movers and Shakers Conference.
The conference was the culminating activity for KHS sophomores’ honors world history and literature program, which involved a yearlong project called the Power of One.
The project, which relied on supplementation across both history and literature curricula, made students take an in-depth look at a single figure in history and argue their figure’s greatness in a 20-page paper. From the paper, students composed a 10-minute in-class presentation that explained why their figure was the greatest person in history. The presentation offered creativity in the way that the students argued their point.
Students created their own criteria for greatness to persuade their teachers why they should be allowed to move on to the Movers and Shakers Conference. While more than 40 students presented initially, only 13 moved on to the actual conference.
These 13 students, whose figures ranged from Henry Ford to Charles Darwin and Nelson Mandela, gave another 10-minute presentation in front of every student taking part in the honors program. Stage fright got the best of no one, and each of the presenters answered selected questions from both the audience and the teachers of the curriculum. It was from these questions that the 13 presenters quickly became three via an audience vote.
The three semi-finalists – Nicole Sponaugle, who presented Alexander Fleming; Stephanie McFadden, who presented Osama Bin Laden; and Kyle Werstein, who presented Sigmund Freud – participated in a three-way debate, where they took turns answering questions from the teachers to truly show who knew the most about their figure.
Despite the intense competition exhibited by the semi-finalists, a friendly atmosphere ruled over the entire competition. After the questions were answered to the teachers’ satisfaction, the students voted once again for one person – the ultimate winner of the conference.
This person would be given the title of “Mover and Shaker” and the coveted honor of wearing the Crown of History.
Once the votes were cast, Kyle Werstein and Sigmund Freud came out as this year’s “Mover and Shaker” and history’s greatest person. The crown was worn with great pride and, despite the fact that only one person won the conference, everyone who participated proved that anyone, no matter who they might be, can truly exhibit the power of one.
