Module HIST1561: Making History

Department: History

HIST1561: Making History

Prerequisites

• Normally an A or B grade in A-Level History, or an acceptable equilalent (e.g. in terms of Scottish Highers or lB).

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To introduce students to a range and variety of historical approaches.
• To provide a grounding for the key explanatory and interpretative skills expected at later stages of the programme.
• To introduce students to the practice of researching and writing history by examining ways in which historians shape knowledge in particular areas.
• To foster student independence through research-led teaching.
• To enhance progression from Level 1 to Level 2 and, in particular, to provide a foundation for work on the Level 2 core module ‘Conversations with History’.

Content

• This module will enable students to develop more advanced study skills through working in a small, intensive seminar requiring extensive reading, discussion, and writing about problems of historical approaches in connection with defined historical themes and primary sources. There will be a lecture course attended by all students on the module during Michaelmas term. In addition, each student will sign up to a particular strand in which particular research questions relating to particular periods and places will be considered. The module will include:
• lectures explaining course objectives, methods, and procedures, and providing an introduction to the approaches developed by historians working on different periods, geographical areas and historical questions;
• staff-directed seminars specific to each strand considering the research questions defined by historians and the ways in which those historians have attempted to address these questions including their approaches to primary source material;
• student-directed seminars requiring students to present aspects of their work-in-progress while they are developing their long independent projects in which they explore research questions and provide a critical analysis of approaches to these questions.

Learning Outcomes

• An understanding of what is meant by a research question.
• A critical understanding of the approaches developed by historians to research questions within the particular themes explore in each strand.
• An understanding of the way in which work on primary sources relates to approaches to research problems.
• An awareness and understanding of historians’ role in shaping historical knowledge and understanding.

• Subject specific skills for this module can be viewed at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/history.internal/local/ModuleProformaMap/ and will include, in particular:
• identifying and defining the research questions addressed by historians;
• ability to explore the ways in which historians address historical problems going beyond the simple accumulation of knowledge;
• ability to identify and to criticise conflicting historical interpretations;
• planning and writing long, independent projects;
• discussing and explaining their ideas in a small-group context;

• Key skills for this module can be viewed at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/history.internal/local/ModuleProformaMap/

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Student learning is facilitated by a combination of the following teaching methods:
• seminars to allow students to present and critically reflect upon the acquired subject-specific knowledge, methodologies and theories, and to identify and debate a range of issues and differing opinions. The seminar is the forum in which students are given the opportunity to communicate ideas, jointly exploring themes and arguments. Seminars are structured to develop understanding and designed to maximise student participation related to prior independent preparation. Seminars give students the opportunity to develop oral communication skills, encourage critical and tolerant approaches to reasoned argument and historical discussion, build the students' ability to marshal historical evidence, and facilitate the development of the ability to summarise historical arguments, think in a rapidly changing environment and communicate in a persuasive and articulate manner, whilst recognising the value of working with others and, occasionally, towards shared goals;
• ten lectures will be delivered over the course of Michaelmas term. These will deal with basic questions of induction, but will also introduce students in generic terms to some of the central issues in historical practice, covering issues such as the evolution of the discipline and methodological approaches, drawing out some of the common issues faced by all historians, and bringing together the different kinds of work done in the seminars for each strand;
• Assessment:
• Three summative pieces of writing make up the assessment for this module: a book review (max 1000 words); a source commentary (max 1000 words); an independent project (max 4000 words).These are designed to encourage students to reflect specifically on the range of materials used in writing History. They will also aid writing and thinking skills required at level 1 and later in the programme. The book review will encourage students to identify the key research questions behind a major work of historical scholarship. They will need to be aware of the research problems being engaged with, and hence the existing shape of the field; the specific themes and arguments of chapters; questions of the use of evidence; distinctive methodologies etc. The source commentary will permit students to demonstrate understanding of a range of themes including the context of the source, as well as its provenance; explanation and interpretation of content and ability to précis; awareness of shortcomings and problems. The independent project will bring together the specific skills studied as part of the core module, with the subject matter of the strand. Questions will be designed in consultation with the tutor, preferably in a specific seminar.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Students will submit an article abstract in term 1. This will encourage students to identify the central ideas behind shorter pieces of historical scholarship and help develop concise note-taking skills. This will lead on, in particular, to the summatively assessed book review. Students will give at least one oral presentation in both Terms 1 and 2. There will also be formative benefits from the summatively assessed book review and source commentary leading up to the independent project.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University