National History Day and American Studies

I have been thinking a lot about how to integrate National History Day into our American Studies course. So far, we have devoted Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays to American Studies curriculum and Thursdays and Fridays to National History Day. As we move forward this will need to change. We will begin studying the Antebellum period after our winter break. This will include reading Fredrick Douglas' Narrative of the Life of a Slave. I also believe it is important to develop our research and writing skills, especially as students' work independently on their NHD projects. I think we will need to devote Friday's and Humanities classes to NHD, while our class time focuses on American Studies. This is an exciting experiment and with hard work before, during, and after school - we will succeed!