This document provides an overview of a historiography course offered at Cheltenham Girls High School. The course focuses on how history has been studied and written about over time. It can be taken by ancient and modern history students who have completed one Year 11 history course. Key themes examined include debates around what constitutes history, different historians' aims and perspectives, and the rise of social and marginalized histories. Students undertake an individual research project analyzing historiographical debates surrounding a topic of their choice.
1. What it’s all about!
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam,
tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham
Girls High School
2. Who can do this course?
A 1 unit course offered for Ancient and Modern
students
Prerequisite: one year 11 history course.
Required: you must be studying ancient and/or
modern in year 12.
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
3. What is it all about?
This course is completely different to any history
you have studied before.
This course focuses on historiography, that is:
The study of how and why history has been
recorded
It is history from a different perspective – the
historians.
How have historians written history and why
have they bothered?
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
4. Some themes and issues raised
What is ‘history’?
The philosophy of ‘history’
Can the truth be
achieved in the search
of history?
Is our understanding
of history merely an
‘interpretation’?
Are there any facts left in history or is it
‘faction’?
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
5. Who are the historians?
What are their AIMS in
writing history?
From ancient through
medieval to modern
historians…
Eg Herodotus to Bede,
Gibbon to Von Ranke, Marx
to Derrida
Who have been the
historians?
What has been their
purpose in writing
history?
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
6. Themes and Issues
How and why has history
changed over time?
Oral stories and myths
Written Narratives
Political and Religious
Propaganda
History as a science
“Total History”
Revisionist and Post Modernist
History
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
7. Themes and Issues
The rise of ‘other’ histories that
have traditionally been ‘ignored’ in
favour of ‘Big History’ and ‘Great
Man History’
History of women
History of the colonised /
indigenous perspectives
History of ordinary peoples eg
peasants
Social histories
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
8. Postmodernist History!?!
No ‘truth’ in history?! Is History just
all fiction anyway?
MAYBE
^
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
9. Themes and Issues
History and the media… changing communications
BOOKS
NEWSPAPERS MAGAZINES
TELEVISION
YOU TUBE / INTERNET
INTERNET
FILM
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
10. Themes and Issues
Do TV/Film count as
History?? What about
historical fiction?
What is the value of such
‘history’??
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
11. Jane Austen as History???
She provides insight into Victorian
England’s:
Values
Fashion
Manners, etiquette
Family unit
Social-classes
This is a new
approach to history
So the question: what counts as history?
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
12. Course Outline
Topic 1 What is History?
– Historiography – where we study the history of how history
has been created, constructed and recorded. We look at the
historians throughout history, how and why they have made
history.
Topic 2 Case Study
– We examine one person or issue and look at how the historians
have written about it over time. We pay attention to conflicting
histories, historical debates and why there are differing ‘histories’
of the one issue/person. CGHS studies Elizabeth I the way
historians have differently interpreted her leadership, policies
and image since the 16th century.
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
13. Case Study:
How has Queen Elizabeth’s
reign been portrayed
throughout history?
Why are there “different
histories” of her life/reign?
Feisty and silly Queenie
on Blackadder
QE’s own commissioned
portrait 16th C. CE
Warrior Queen??
Various film interpretations
Rubber ducky Liz!!
Horrible Histories TV!!
The first history book of Liz –
published 17th C.
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
14. Topic 3 Major Project
Students choose a topic/issue of interest to them
(ancient, medieval, modern) to examine the
historiographical debates and history of it.
Your approach to this is modeled in the class case study
(Queen Elizabeth)
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
15. Past Project Topics
2012 student topics:
MODERN HISTORY
The Bombings of Japan: Was there any alternative?
The Question of the Armenian “Genocide”
Historiographical debates surrounding the Nanking
Massacre
EARLY MODERN HISTORY
Catherine the Great: varying interpretations of her
leadership
Historiographical debate surrounding Rousseau’s
influence on the French Revolution.
MEDIEVAL HISTORY
Different interpretations of the causes of the English
Reformation (Henry VIII)
A study of the modern historiographical thought of the
impact of the Norman Conquest on England
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
16. Other past projects
Revising the Holocaust
King Arthur in History and Legend
Marie Antoinette: Saint or Sinner? (pictured right)
Tiananmen Square
The Killing Fields of Cambodia
National Museum of Australia and the History
Wars
Historiography of gender in the Salem Witch
Trials
The historical portrayal of Ned Kelly in the media
Amazonian Warrior Women: hisotriographical
debate: fact or fiction?
Competing histories of Malcolm X
Was Pharaoh Akhenaten the forerunner of
Judaism?
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
17. Major Project 40
Trial HSC 10
Total Assessment 50
(1 unit course)
There will be a Midcourse Exam
which will be partially assessable
Format of Midcourse, Trial and HSC Exam
2 hours 2 essays:
- Q1 on Topic 1 What is History
- Q2 on Topic 2 Elizabeth case study
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
18. Skills developed
Analytical thinking / critical thinking
Written communication and
expression
Oral communication, debating,
discussion
Media discernment and critique
Research skills
Self motivation and independent
research
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
20. You should consider it if:
You have a passion and enthusiasm for any history –
history nerds only need apply!
You are achieving good marks in 2U history; eg a Band
4-6 level
You’re interested in philosophy and ideas and/or arguing
and debating
You’re planning to do history at university.
Other university subjects it will help with: research based,
writing/essay based, law/communications/media etc
You’d like to improve your understanding of the ideas and
concepts, skills and practice of ancient and/or modern
history
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
21. Some final thoughts
Windshuttle vs Reynolds
Sparked the History Wars in Australia
Polarised debate on Australian History
Was Australia settled or invaded?
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School
22. Some final thoughts
David Irving – Holocaust Denial
Revises traditional history of the
holocaust and Nazi Germany
Denies the Holocaust Happened!!
This presentation was created by Tara Ellam, tara.ellam@det.nsw.edu.au, at Cheltenham Girls High School