POLAND – A teacher at Bruce M. Whittier Middle School plans to share lessons he learned from a history course with his students this year.

Logan Landry, who has taught seventh grade social studies for five years, was selected in mid-May to represent Maine in the National History Day webinar course.

According to its website, National History Day is a nonprofit educational organization based in College Park, Maryland, to promote study and appreciation of history among students. John Taylor, the coordinator for Maine, said the organization chose one teacher from each of its 98 affiliates across the country to participate in the course.

Landry said the course explained how to use evidence gleaned from primary sources in order to defend an argument or point. It was the perfect opportunity to take new research skills back to his students for the upcoming school year, he said.

“What the students learn from National History Day will help them in so many ways, well into adulthood,” Landry said. “(They) learn important research skills, how to make a claim and defend it with evidence, professional presentation skills and interview skills.”

Landry was assigned to select a topic related to Prohibition or the temperance movement, create an argument surrounding it and defend the point. Using primary source material from the Library of Congress, he argued that an 1851 Maine law that banned the sale and consumption of alcohol was a “xenophobic attack on the heritage of Portland’s many Irish citizens.”

He also picked up new research methods, including organizing information to determine if there is enough evidence to support an argument.

It’ll help students in writing an argumentative essay in English and language arts, or being able to back up their views on a particular issue, Landry said.