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

19. Pathways to…
Professions
Journalism
Media and
Communications
Teaching
History and
Archaeology
Philosophy
Business
Law
Librarians
Museums and
Historic Sites
Writing
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