Learning MH without a teacher!!! (1 Viewer)

[slowjam10]

Hey,

I don't know if any of you have read my posts in the General forum regarding my continually absent teacher, but I was wondering if anybody has any good textbook recommendations that I can use to write notes. The annoying thing it seems with modern is that there is no comprehensive textbook like say, Legal Studies.

Also, I've noticed that other students have mentioned that throughout your essays you have to refer to historians etc, well our teacher when he has been there that is, has not even mentioned any historians or their arguments or anything.

This is kind of worrying me and to make things worse is that he rushes through the work when he comes back from being away and no one really understands anything.

He even told us once that the stuff he tells us will only scrape us a pass.

So far we've covered WW1 and Indochina and have just started getting into Russia. Do you think we are behind?, because i definitely feel behind compared to other subjects. The teacher however, feels that we are perfectly on track.

The topics I do are:

WW1 - obviously
Indochina
Russia
Trotsky

The textbooks I have are the Key Features of Modern History and the HTA Modern History Study Guide. Do you have any other suggestions on textbooks that i can use to make notes? I have heard of one called Flashpoints: National and International Studies.

This is really annoying and sadly i have the same teacher for Extension History. I'm kind of in two minds whether to drop modern and keep ext. But then i will have only 10 units. Hence, Extension will count.

It's not like im doing terrible at any of my subjects as i am ranked first in them all bar modern which i am second and my marks range from high 80's to high 90's but i'm pretty worried about this subject.

 

[stillwaters]

flashpoints will give you the general gist but you need to go out a check out actual books in your local library (and uni libraries if you're very dedicated ^^) that are written on your topics... you don't have to read them cover to cover but just maybe the intro, or certain chapters that are similar to syllabus dot points so you can chuck the name in when you need to.
i don't do any of the topics you're doing... except for WW1 ... obviously...
erm.. there's a really good textbook called The Great War (by Mark McAndret, David THomas, Philip Cummins) (3rd Edition) by Cambridge... pretty good, covers topics in depth, has practise questions.
if you check out the exemplar responses in modern from the assessment resource centre on the actual board of studies site , then some of the essay responses actually don't have that many historians... just one or two... this article called advice on writing essays, by ken webb actually advises that you should only use them when they're needed, dont just chuck em in there to 'impress' the markers... but that's another guy whose textbooks you should chjeck out, ken webb... we use him for germany and leni riefenstahl but he might have also written stuff on russia and trotsky ?

 

[stillwaters]

also, is that what the ppl in your class generally feel about modern/ your modern teacher?

 

[lionking1191]

all you need is key features

apart from making notes and answering the review questions, read the "guide to further reading" at the end of every chapter. Key features have a brief overview of historiography where needed, but it's a good idea to have a read of some of the works quoted

 

[slowjam10]

also, is that what the ppl in your class generally feel about modern/ your modern teacher?

Thanks for your suggestion.

Yeah the whole class pretty much feels the same way and we have recently compiled complaints along with the economics and extension history classes to the school executive about the unqualified substitutes we have been having as replacement for this teacher being away.

Their solution has been to give us a new teacher while our teacher is away but now ours is coming back.

Nightmare I tell you.

 

[gezzill]

WW1: from sarajevo to versailles
ken webb

this book is good for ww1. it follows all the syllabus in chapters and subheadings etc.
and i didnt do any of the rest of your topics. sorry

 

[rach19]

I use excel to start off any topic and get the key points before researching, it would be worth buying one for study cards and brief summaries. Heres some recommended reading (more in excel)

Indochina
Vietnam: A history, Stanley Karnow
Without honor: defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia, Issac Arnold

Russia
Rethinking the Russian Revolution, Edward Acton
Bolsheviks, Adam Ulam
A history of the Russian secret Service, Richard Deacon

It may also help looking for source documents in online archives, find some historians also and get good reference quotes. Hope this helps

 

[nick3157]

HTA Modern History Study Guide

 

[Mr G]

The thing to remember is that WW1 is the core study it's more about sources than facts so when making notes for this topic just focus on facts and source analysis (i.e. no historians). Key features and the various study guides around should be comprehensive enough for this topic, so if you already have KF and HTA perhaps look at the excel and the maquarie guides. The textbook by Webb is also excellent for source analysis and interpritation.

For the other 3 sections I can't help much with books because I don't know the topics. Generally speaking though your not going to get much above 20/25 without some significant historian useage. Given your situation the best option is to find as many textbook like resources you can get then hit up the library and find as many books as possible written by historians. Then get to together with some friends and start writing summaries of historians quotes/ideas on the various aspects of your topic under syllabus dot points in the same way that your doing for your factual content. If you don't have a syllabus you can grab them in PDF format from boardofstudies.com along with PDF printouts of previous HSC papers to give you an idea of what sort of questions they are going to ask.

Ideally a top end response will be structured quite heavily around historians looking something like

The idea that Modern History is the coolest subject ever has been supported by Joe bloggs when he discussed bla bla bla (factual detail to support argument)
This interpriation has however been challenged by Jane Bloggs who thinks that Modern History is boring and believes that all students should engage in advance basket weaving etc etc....

In other words when making your argument try and incorperate historian's arguments rather than just saying what you think AND support that with factual detail.

If you want some advise on how to build summary notes you should start with facts broken down under syllabus headings then IF you know all of that work on adding historians to flesh out the argument and finally work through sample questions from past papers (remembering that the syllabus changed in 2006 so anything before that may not be relevant) where you simply write an intro and then a dot point summary of your arguments (basically your topic sentences)

-Hope that helps (Good luck!)


P.S Go to the library... you would be amazed how many dusty old books have exactly what your looking for, find the big name historians from the biblio at the back of things like KF and search them out!