Hoboken Sophomore Wins Flocabulary Black History Month Contest

Press release from Hoboken Public School District:

April 17, 2023

Hoboken HS Sophomore Arcadio Torres is the National Award Winner of the Flocabulary Black History Month Hip-hop Contest.

As the grand prize winner, Arcadio will work with a team of rappers, singers, and artists to create a lesson inspired by his Frederick Douglass writing. The video and interactive activities will go live on Flocabulary.com in September 2023 and will be shared with over 35,000 schools around the world. Flocabulary's mission is to increase academic performance with an emphasis on vocabulary through hip-hop videos and fun, interactive activities.

Arcadio Torres said, “It was very exciting and surprising to hear that I had won. It was nice to see all the support and congratulations given by everyone in our school.”

The Black History Month Contest is sponsored by Nearpod Inc.(“Flocabulary”). The Contest is an original song submission contest where teachers, parents or guardians of K – 12th grade students can submit original songs created by their students. Arcadio’s submission was selected from thousands of submissions around the world.

Cailee Corkill, Nearpod Community Marketing Coordinator said, “We’re so happy to share that Arcadio Torres is our Secondary School winner for this year’s Contest! We were so impressed by the research, writing skill and enthusiasm that he put into their entry. Please pass along our appreciation and admiration for his outstanding work!”

Arcadio will be working with a Flocabulary team of rappers, singers, and artists to create a lesson inspired by his work. The lesson will be about Frederick Douglass published on Flocabulary.com around September 2023. This lesson will be inspired by Arcadio’s work, so you can expect to see parts of their lyrics incorporated into the final project.

Rachel Loughlin, Hoboken HS History teacher said, “Arcadio seamlessly blended parts of Frederick Douglass' life story, the Declaration of Independence and simple emotion into a powerful story. All of his classmates were ecstatic when he made the finals and we all were keeping our fingers crossed for the final announcement. They can't wait to see how the professional Flocabulary hip hop team is going to animate and mix Arcadio's work.”

This press release was produced by Hoboken Public School District. The views expressed here are the author's own.