What is History Extension? A guide for subject selectionHey guys,
If you are in year 11 and do a history subject, you may be starting to consider History Extension. I would definitely recommend extension as it’s one of my favourite subjects and has challenged some of my views on history. However, it is a difficult subject (pretty much university level) and has a huge major work you would need to spend time on. To help you decide (or to give those who have decided an insight into the course), I decided to make this guide to tell you the basics of what exactly is covered in this subject and how it is different from your history subjects. I’ve split this into three parts to cover the main sections of the course: What is history?, the case study, and the major work.
History extension is not centred on learning about personalities, societies or events that have happened in the past. It is actually very different to your history subject (Ancient or Modern) because it focusses on
historiography, which is a major part of all three sections of the course. Historiography is the study of historians and in history extension you learn how the writing of history has changed over time.
1. What is History?In this section, you will look at different historians/schools of history and how aspects such as their methods and purpose have changed throughout history. You will begin at the Ancient historians through to periods such as the Enlightenment, empiricism, relativism, post-modernism and then to more modern ideas such as big history and macro history (and probably more-but don’t worry you don’t need to know anything yet). My class tended to look at one historian/school/idea (e.g film/video games as history) a week.
When doing this section there are four main enquiry questions that you will look at:
- Who are the historians?
This part is more the context (social, personal and historical) and biographical details of the historian, their personal values and beliefs. What happened at the time that they were writing and how did this influence them? - What are the purposes of history?
Why did this person write their histories? How has the purpose of history change over time? - How has history been constructed and recorded over time?
This question focusses on the historian methodology. What type of history is written? What techniques/language/style is used and how? What forms of historical communication do they use? - Why have approaches to history changed over time?
Reasons for why the interpretation and approach has changed. How has context affected their approach? How have changing interpretations about approaches to the construction of history affected them-do they have a new interpretation on how history should be constructed? How have Changing philosophies of history affected their thinking?
You may get readings for each week that might include the historians work and some information about the historian (maybe from a textbook). You might not get the time to read this each week before class, but it may be expected/for homework and will be useful in understanding and studying them in class.
The exam: Section one of the exam always has a source that you will need to extract the main arguments from and consistently reference throughout your essay. It is normally about ½ to a page long. They will require a judgement throughout the essay and a developed argument/voice.
Past questions include:
- 2016 HSC-To what extent can the changing nature of ‘evidence’ influence approaches to history over time?
- 2015 HSC-To what extent can histories be ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’?
- 2014 HSC-To what extent is the search for truth the purpose of history?
2. Case study This is where you will study a historical event/personality and the different (sometimes conflicting) interpretations surrounding it. I was going to list all of the different case studies but realised there are 24, so I'll link them
here (Pg 14.) (ask your teacher which one you will study).
There are five different sections of each case study and in class you must study three. For example, in JFK I study Cuba, Kennedy and Khrushchev and Indochina. You will
most likely only need to refer to one case study in your exam.
For this part, you learn a bit about the history of the event (e.g I learnt about the Cold War) however it is still very historiographical. You will learn about things such as the historian’s context, purpose and methodology and how this has affected their beliefs of the events.
The exam: Usually smaller source then section one, sometimes only one sentence or a short paragraph. You must refer to the source in your essay.
Past question (2013 HSC):
As historians, we must tell what we find. But what we find is inevitably distinctive, individual, political and personal [Penny Russell]. Using this statement, asses how interpretations of history are shaped by the context of historians.
2015 HSC:
The past is fixed-no one can change what happened-but as the values of society change, the historians’ depictions of the past changes also [David Crabtree].
To what extent does this statement apply to the changing interpretations of historical debates in your case study.
3. Major work The major work makes up a huge chunk of your internal marks (80%). It is basically a larger, more important version of the enquiry/research project you would have done in year 11 Ancient/Modern.
What are the components of the major?
- A proposal outlining what your question and research intentions are
- A 2500 word essay
- A bibliography of all the sources used
- A 600 word analysis on the usefulness and reliability of your three main sources
- A logbook outlining all the steps taken in your project (I also included all research here-would really recommend doing this as you go and not last minute)
There is already an amazing guide for the major
here . So I’ll just highlight a few of my tips:
- Pick a topic you enjoy and are passionate about as you will want to spend time working on it.
- Try to pick a topic early on, it took me forever and I could have used some of that time for research or working on my essay.
- Be prepared to change your question (I had three different questions that were all loosely based on the same topic)
- Research heaps and widely (University libraries are great: I used USYD and Macquarie and they had a lot of books that I used).
- Don't try to write your drafts last minute, give yourself heaps of time-you don’t need the stress and you deserve an an amazing mark. Try to work on your major consistently but be sure to take breaks for half yearly exams and other important stuff that happens in your life.
- Give your teacher a lot of drafts and incorporate all of their feedback into your essay.
History Extension is normally run out of normal lines either in the afternoon or morning, therefore I have an 8:30-5:15 school day on Wednesdays which is sometimes a really long, tiring day. We normally spend an hour on the What is history and the case study each week, however your class may do it differently. If you are still unsure you can always take up the class and as it is only a one-unit course can drop it if you are feeling overwhelmed with the content and workload. Don’t feel like alone if you don’t understand something-this is a really hard course and everybody is learning it for the first time. However, if you do have any questions about subject selection or history extension, feel free to post them either on this guide or on the
history extension question thread and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Hope this helps
.
Katie
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