Hey Hist Ext buddy!! Your topic seems really cool, it's very controversial and I'm sure you can find lots of information to be able sustain an argument on whether he was a villain or hero. A focus question could be something very simple, doesn't need to be very specific and you could literally just do ' Ned Kelly, hero or villain? That way it doesn't necessarily need to connect to the key questions and you can just create five key questions based off the focus as opposed to the other way around.
My teacher gave me a booklet for what I should include in my proposal and it follows this scaffold-
-Student Name(s):
Due Date: Length:
Topic:
Focus Question:
Sub Questions: (historical questions eg why what when who where what, conclusions, results, significance)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Research Action Plan - what to do? When to do it?
1.Defining What do I want to find out about this topic?
2.Locating: Where can I find the historical sources of information I need?
3.Selecting: what types of historical sources will be most useful for this particular task and why? Eg primary, written, oral etc
4. Organising: How am I going to organise this information?
5. Presenting: How am I going to present my research? Argue, challenge and discussion, evaluation?
6. Evaluating: What did I learn about the research Process, the usefulness of historical sources and the topic from this task?
That's basically it, sorry if it's too long but just follow this scaffold and you'll be right. Good Luck!!!
