History and Pizza (or HAPs) lunchtime discussions for the 10th grade Crisis and Courage in Global History advanced course are so popular that this week, two sophomores—Ella B. and Miranda F.—organized one specially for the juniors and seniors at the upperclassmen’s request.

HAPs are a cornerstone of the Crisis and Courage course, allowing for students to discuss in-depth readings related to their coursework outside of class. Previously, various Westridge teachers including English Teacher Max Duncan, Spanish Teacher Vicki Garrett, Science Teacher Ryan Skophammer have brought their expertise to discuss topics related to course study.

Ella and Miranda chose the Battle of Liberty Place as their topic, researched into it, and compiled multiple sources into a packet for their peers to read and discuss during Wednesday’s HAP. As for how they chose their topic, Ella said: “Looking back at our planning for the event we knew our event would take place around January 6 (the date of the recent Capitol insurrection) so we decided to discuss something regarding insurrections. Knowing the juniors were learning about Reconstruction after the Civil War, we wanted to combine those two elements into our HAP.” (The Battle of Liberty Place was an attempted insurrection in 1874 by the Crescent City White League against the Louisiana state government during the Reconstruction.)

“They’ve really worked on this for quite some time—it’s been impressive to watch them execute this,” said Upper School History Teacher Jennifer Cutler. The organizers said they were thrilled with the outcome of the HAP with around 30 students in attendance.