At NLCP we believe in people creating “Intentional Lives.”
A person’s life can be “Accidental” or “Intentional.” The Accidental Life just happens – there is no particular plan, priorities, or guiding principles. In the Accidental Life, accidents happen. The Accidental person loses his/her way. In the “Intentional Life,” a person has clear goals in mind and commits to a way of getting there. The big dreams for his/her life come with a specific blueprint. The Intentional Life knows where it is going and how it will get there. The Intentional person makes his/her own way. NLCP wants to make sure that when our seniors leave, they know where they are going.
The Senior Project, as a culminating project to the four-year NLCP experience, is designed to help seniors become their most “intentional.” NLCP wants our graduates to make the successful transition to adulthood and take responsibility for setting the courses for their successful lives. We expect our graduates to take with them a belief in themselves that says, “I have power. I can make change occur in my life. And, I have a responsibility to serve my community to make change occur to benefit the lives of others."
To that end, during the Senior Project, the senior selects a senior mentor (a NLCP faculty or staff member); creates "driving questions" about a particular aspect of life; pursues those questions through formal and wide-ranging primary and secondary research; develops a formal research essay which argues a response to his/her driving question; and then prepares to present his/her argument to an independent panel of adult judges (board members, administrators, teachers, community members, and other interested parties), who assess the quality of the argument and presentation.
Senior Project: Final Presentation Film Samples, created through Free Spirit Media
Research Links
JSTOR (Username: NLCP_Phoenix, Password: werise) Access to full text articles from thousands of academic journals in awide variety of fields. Some articles may be advanced, so this is a good place to go once you are further along in the research process, looking for more specific articles on your topic.
Student Resource Center (School Name: Collins, Username: 1880) Full text of over 1,000 magazines and academic journals as well as primary documents, biographies, newspapers, photographs, illustrations, and audio/video clips.
Gale Virtual Reference Center (School Name: Collins, Username: 1880) Multi-volume reference sets on global geography and culture, history, environment, energy, literature, etc.
Gale Discovering Collection (School Name: Collins, Password: 1880) Contains reference works, multimedia, creative works, and primary resources on a wide variety of topics.
Student Resource Center Health Module (School Name: Collins, Username: 1880) Essays on medical and health-related topics including diseases, treatments, and major historical figures in the medical and science fields.
ABC CLIO(Username and Password: 1880) Reference resources for social studies, history, geography, current events. Includes essays, maps, images, e-Books, primary documents, activities and more.
Encyclopedia Britannica Online (Username and Password: 1880) Encyclopedia that includes internet links, journal and magazine articles, timelines, and dictionary and atlas resources.
NewsBank (Username and Password: 1880) Chicago Tribune Historical Archive (1845 to the present), Chicago Sun-Times (1986 to the present), and other news-related resources.
Oxford African American Studies Center (Username and Password: 1880cps) Comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.
Chicago Public Library (Search top right-hand corner; Required: CPL Card number and zip code) Access to dozens of databases in a variety of fields. Library card holders can also search the book catalog and request books and films be transferred to the nearest branch for check-out.
The Librarians' Internet Index (no password necessary) A database of websites that have been reveiwed by real people - so you can assume the sites are reliable internet sources.
Teen Health and Wellness (Username and Password: 1880) Provides students with curricular support and self-help on topics including diseases, drugs, alcohol, nutrition, fitness, mental health, diversity, and family life.
The History Makers (No password needed) Free online source for African American biographies, history, timelines, and events.
The Library of Congress (No password needed) Free online resources for American history. A digital collection of more than 8 million primary source materials, including historical maps, documents, audio and video.
Encyclopedia of Chicago (No password needed) Free, comprehensive reference source of Chicago history.
