Women Leading the Way is a national class project that encourages the interdisciplinary collaboration between English or ELA, history and art teachers.

Students will examine the history of the Women's Suffrage Movement and beyond through learning about the extraordinary women who made significant and lasting contributions to Human Rights in the United States and around the globe.

They will connect their own family stories to history, study the art of portraiture and reflect personally on the project.

This project is FREE, and open to all students and their teachers in the United States and its territories, and in international schools everywhere, who are in grades 9-12 during the 2018-2019 school year, or in grade 9-12 during the Fall of 2019-2020 school year.

REGISTRATION : Ongoing 

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: JUNE 30, 2019 or DECEMBER 30, 2019 (at completion of the project)

From registration to submission: A process in 4 phases

Whether two or three teachers are teaming up on the project with their class of students, one designated "Team Leader" teacher must act as the referring coordinator for the entirety of the project. The Team Leader will complete the online registration form on behalf of his/her team at the beginning of the project. S/he will also be responsible for both registering the student selected to represent his/her school and submitting that student’s work for the national poster exhibit at the end of the project.

Phase 1: Register online TODAY – Team Leader to fill out the online registration form on behalf of the team. 

Phase 2: Start sending files: all students' essays and artwork to be uploaded for publication in the Storytelling Archive online.

Phase 3: Register the student selected to represent your school in the exhibition; Team Leader to register name of selected student to represent his/her school in an exhibition. Deadline: June 30, 2019 or December 30, 2019. 

Phase 4: Team Leader to submit students' work electronically. That submission process has 2 parts and should be sent as a ZIP file. Deadline for file submission: June 30, 2019 or December 30, 2019.  

1.   The Poster: The poster is for the physical exhibit in 2020. You and your team will have the difficult task of selecting one work you wish to represent your school in that show. But, please feel free to send us all the other posters as well as high resolution JPGs.
2.   Essays and Artwork: Separate from the poster(s), we will be featuring all of the students’ works in our storytelling archive online, so please send in all individual files (text and high-resolution art images).

Delivery confirmation:

An email confirmation will be sent to each school’s Team Leader within two days of completed submission delivery. A follow-up email will be sent after review of the submissions. Please note: it is the project leaders’ responsibility to ensure that entry rules are adhered to.

Exhibiting the work in Spring 2020:

• Because this is meant as a community project, it is strongly encouraged that all participating schools find a way to display their students’ work locally in their school or local community, as a show of unity.

• An Online Exhibition will showcase all participating schools’ entries

• A National Poster Exhibition featuring 100 posters will be held in New York City.

Vernissage/Reception:

There will be an opening reception for the National Poster Exhibition in the Spring of 2020.

The Centennial of Women’s Suffrage Project began during the 2018-2019 school year. The project has been extended to the Fall of 2019 to be completed by December 30, 2019. Teachers may sign up for the project as registrations are open and ongoing. 

1. The Project is open to all students and a team of their teachers from schools in the United States and its territories, and from international schools everywhere, in grades 9 to 12 during the 2018-2019 school year or in the Fall of 2019. Each team must be affiliated with a school. Schools may be public, private, charter or parochial.

2. A designated Team Leader teacher within each school must register through the website’s online registration form, and commit a class or grade to the project. This is to ensure keeping track of all the participating schools in our national community project.

3. Combined essays must be no fewer than 1,000, and no more than 1,500 words in length. It is the responsibility of each participating Team (student and school Team Leaders) to ensure the essays stay on topic, are free of spelling and grammatical errors, and are devoid of plagiarism.

4. All writing and art productions must be original work. All sources for essays must be clearly cited – (word count does not apply to the list of sources). Two or more of the cited materials should come from the following primary sources: A document; oral history; or other sort of evidence, written or otherwise produced. Wikipedia and other general encyclopedias should not be cited sources.  All essays and artwork will be showcased online in a Storytelling Archive.

Selection, Poster and Submission guidelines:

5. By June 30, 2019 or by December 30, 2019 (depending on when the project started) Team Leaders will submit all of their students’ individual essays, artwork and posters electronically. Out of all their submissions, Team Leaders will also select one poster to represent their school in the National Poster Exhibition. The selection should reflect the finest single work produced in an entire class or grade by one (or more) of their students, based on:

• Quality of the research and writing of historical figure
• Quality of the essay of the family experience in its historical context
• Creativity, originality of artwork
• Thoughtful personal reflection about the project

7. Poster requirements are optional. We encourage each class to create a poster for the National Poster Exhibition, to be held in the Spring of 2020.  Posters offer students the opportunity to record and share their histories with their families and communities.  (Many participants in the original Project still have and cherish their posters.)  Poster options:   

• Create a poster of your own design that best represents your institution and its values;
• Each poster should include three essays and two artworks.  We encourage you to challenge all of your students to create a poster — although this is not a project requirement.  (We also encourage you add your school logo, school name, address, and list of participating teachers and students.)

8. The Lycée Français de New York is proud sponsor of the printing of the 100 posters selected for the National Poster Exhibition to be held in NYC, in 2020.

With rights come civic responsibility and duty. In a democracy, it is incumbent upon each and every citizen to share in the collective responsibility of upholding its founding values by taking an active role in the process of self-governance. Voting rights are the foundation of democracy.

• This project aims to support a fundamental aspect of the mission of any institution of learning: the responsibility to help shape young minds into budding citizens.

• 2020 will be an important election year; the project offers a valuable tool and a unique opportunity to engage and connect students to the issues of their own time in a safe environment through guided discussions, thoughtful reflections and critical thinking.

• It speaks to unity and seeks to foster a greater sense of community and appreciation of humanity’s shared experience. Enhancing the visibility of your school through a national exhibition will not only unite schools, but individual work within the schools themselves.