Help with Ideas for Major Work (1 Viewer)

[studybuddy09]

Though it is early days yet, i cant help but think about certain things that I might want to do for History Extension. This is more of just a request for advice, to expand on what I'm thinking of, i dont really want to do "what will get me the marks", but "what is within my interests, is able to be written about and what has historiographical elements to it"

Some ideas I've been having:

Waterloo or Wellington (I'm not too up to date on this era but I know there is historiographical potential, IE portraits that people have painted of Wellseley etc)

Cossacks (Once again, not too sure about this one since its not got much historiography or opinion on it)

Portrayals of Communism in East Germany/The work of the Stasi (I think a lot of people go along these lines, which makes it seem like a cop-out to me)

Something to do with Nazi Germany/SS (Once again, everybody does it which means I'm doubtful, however both this and communism have the greatest potential for historiographical and Historians' opinions study)

Anyway, any advice, help, suggestions, criticisms, agreements or disagreements would be MUCH MUCH appreciated!

 

[el-capitano]

omg, i wish i could give you advice but i totally need some myself.
im sooo confused/frustrated about ideas for my major work. i have toooo many .
According to my extension history teacher it's not early days, i'm actually 'late' with finding a topic :/
I was thinking something like maybe :
Joan of Arc or Aung San Suu Kyi ...
feminists ftw (Y) but like, i really have no idea. i loved the french reign of terror too... and marie antoinette??

i can offer a compliment though, i think cossacks is really, really interesting. i was looking at the red army before as well, like the russians?
they were pretty interesting so i get where youre coming from. you'd be able to do pretty well if you went for that i think

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ancient history. modern history. history extension. adv-english. english extension 1. adv-mathematics. legal studies. economics.

 

[studybuddy09]

I know we have to make a choice pretty soon but don't we have like a term to do research and reform and find a question to do or even change subject completely??

I was talking to my teacher and he reckons its important not to just choose a subject to find events, facts etc like WHO WHAT WHERE WHEN but also like the historians aspect like HOW do we study it, what are the conflicting perspectives and WHY are there conflicting perspectives

Anyway, i have a meeting on Friday so I will get back to you on any new info

Pls, anybody with any info on what we do etc post and help us!

 

[el-capitano]

yeah we do but our teacher wants us to be prettyyyy solid early so it gives us extra time to work on it and reshape the question if needbe...
and yeah thanks so much. i have my meeting tomorrow ahaha.. so ill ask about some of the key do's and dont's....
its annoying how all schools teach differently :/ like in respect to things that we should stay away from ?


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ancient history. modern history. history extension. adv-english. english extension 1. adv-mathematics. legal studies. economics.</SPAN>

=FML

 

[studybuddy09]

I just had the meeting,
Feel like im leaning more towards Wellington because its less common, but East Germany is still on the list since i watched a doco on it a while ago.

My teacher reckons you need a topic by the end of this term, and a question the term after that, or thats the idea I'm getting from him, i still want to see what some other people are going to do, so keep the posts coming!

 

[roar84eighty]

do what your teacher is interested in lol
that's what got me full mark

something with postmodern interpretations (i don't know, maybe personalities or historical myths? i done tocqueville vs. baudrillard) is fun and good to research if your teacher isn't an old cunt who doesn't understand it

edit: don't do marie antionette, che guevara, joan of arc, king arthur, etc.

 

[el-capitano]

ahhhh haha, that totally kills my plans
hahha, i was like almost 100% on che guevara :/
like i was going to look at the aspect of whether the people who idolise him have any grounds or whether he really was just a cold blooded killer.
in our extension lesson we were told that we were going to need to use journals from the state library - i dont know how many schools do this but our ONE 'excursion' will be to the state library...
maybe if youre not doing that you should consider it, you get a lifetime memebership and everything..

umm yeah i really think wellington or east germany sounds greatttt.. i personally think that unless youre acutally interested in it, like legit- interested. theres totally no point cause youll be bored and youll put that much less effort in.
im like fully feministic. ahaha thats why i was going for the whole- matyr type -go-go-female view point :/
not so sure anymore though

vlad the impaler or something would also be a pretty decent topic i think?

 

[jessica.anne]

do what your teacher is interested in lol
that's what got me full mark

+1.

My teacher basically "chose" the topic for me/pushed me in the direction he was interested in. He loved it and it got 100%.

Also, something that interests you may only distract you, so be careful!

 

[Jakeo]

I just have way too many ideas, and such a short time span to settle on a core topic.

I was leaning towards a few such as:

*Women in the 19th Century - Feminist Movement etc
*The Holocaust (Which of course, is way too controversial for my own liking, and too common a choice).
*The Cold War (Too many options to choose from, haha!)
*19th Century Imperialism.

I'm personally liking:

*America's involvement in WWII ('Honourable Victors' or 'Opportunists') - The lend lease agreement, the dropping of the A-Bomb, shift in global power and the 'New World Order' flowing on effects, etc etc.

So many choices in my head as well. Gosh, I should figure it out soon!

 

[el-capitano]

ahh tell me about it :/ we have the saaammee issue. but im sure with all those great ideas your final topic shall be wonderful ^_^
cant wait to hear more about it.

and yeaahhhh.. feminists FTW (Y)

 

[sunsettah]

Whats the major work in history extention supposed to be?

Your interpretation of an historical character/event? Or something? A critical response? Just curious.

 

[Jakeo]

Whats the major work in history extention supposed to be?

Your interpretation of an historical character/event? Or something? A critical response? Just curious.

It can be your own interpretation, and the criteria for choosing a topic is as follows:
The topic must be developed from one or more of the following areas:
• a historical debate or controversy
• a historian’s or archaeologist’s work
• changing analysis of an archaeological site over time
• ethical issues surrounding an archaeological site
• contrasting approaches to a historical personality, issue or event
• museums as history
• history in the media – film, documentary, fiction, docudrama, drama, poetry, opera
• an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the history of a personality, issue or event
• the impact of global or national events at a regional or local level
• oral history
• historical biography
• local history
• the history of an institution
• critical analysis of a major historical work
• the use and misuse of history in either a specific context or over time.
The topic of the project should reflect an area of student interest; however, the topic:
• must focus on the fundamental historiographical concepts and issues of HSC History Extension
• may be developed from a case study but should cover substantially different ground
• must not overlap significantly with the examinable content of any other School Certificate or Higher School Certificate course.
26

So...It's kind of a lot of choices you can make. There are plenty of debates and controversies to choose from. As long as you have at least a few sources which reflect your choice of question/debate, you can investigate it and present an argument for/against. In that sense, you can choose mostly anything, as long as you can argue for or against, or discuss, if applicable, why both are similarly correct.

For instance, A. K. P. Taylor argued that the U.S. was partly to blame for WWII, because "it pressed the Japanese too hard in 1940-41 and rejected compromises."

 

[spazamataz]

My only advice is do something that is really obvious, don't try and do something different like I did. I did blood diamonds, but it took me ages to figure out any historiographical questions about it, and my resources had to come from interstate libraries, which took weeks to get here!
So yeah, do something that there is an abundance of resources on!

 

[roar84eighty]

no one but a hairy-arm-pitted dyke teacher wants to read a shitty high-school essay on feminist historiography
if your teacher complies with the above then by all means do so

anything that has been re-interpreted because of the advent of new ideologies or schools of historical thought are easy to talk about and promise at least 90% and above.

 

[spazamataz]

feminists for the fucking fail

no one but a hairy-arm-pitted botch wants to read a shitty high school essay on feminist historiography

if your teacher complies with the above then by all means do so

+ 1

 

[Jeee]

+1.

My teacher basically "chose" the topic for me/pushed me in the direction he was interested in. He loved it and it got 100%.

Also, something that interests you may only distract you, so be careful!

Really good advice...(Y)

 

[roar84eighty]

lol had to edit my post

 

[el-capitano]

no one but a hairy-arm-pitted dyke teacher wants to read a shitty high-school essay on feminist historiography
if your teacher complies with the above then by all means do so

anything that has been re-interpreted because of the advent of new ideologies or schools of historical thought are easy to talk about and promise at least 90% and above.

ouch? umm theres a difference between being a bra burning man hating feminist and simply having views on equality and the importance of a woman's role in history.

way to be a misoginistic pig.

 

[Failure_123]

When do you we actually start? seems abit early doesn't it?

 

[Thecorey0]

When do you we actually start? seems abit early doesn't it?

Start as soon as possible.