HSC History Extension case studies
HSC History Extension · Put your knowledge to work in context.
History Extension Stage 6 (2017) is a one-unit NSW Board Developed Year 12 course, listed as course number 15280. It is designed for students who want to examine how history itself is constructed and what role historians play, rather than simply accumulating content about the past. The HSC History Extension case studies are 5 cases and about 2,875 words.
1The Archive That Contradicts Itself
A student is writing a case study on a 1930s dockworkers' strike. She has found three sources.
632 words, about 3 min2The Historian's Footnote Problem
A student is examining how a famous historian, writing in 1962, treated a colonial frontier conflict. In the book's footnotes, the historian cites 'oral testimony collected in the district, 1958' for a claim that 'the local population offered no resistance.' The student finds that the historian's private papers, now archived, contain a letter from 1959 saying that two informants had told him resistance did occur, but he considered their accounts 'too partial to use.' The student has 900 words and wants to argue that the historian deliberately distorted the record.
583 words, about 3 min3Choosing a History Project Question
A student must submit a History Project proposal in two weeks. She has three possible topics and a 4,000-word limit.
598 words, about 3 min4When the Textbook and the Source Disagree
A student is studying a 19th-century treaty between a colonial power and an Indigenous nation. Her textbook says the treaty 'ceded land in exchange for guaranteed rights.' The treaty text, which she reads in translation, uses a word the translator renders as 'guardianship' rather than 'cession,' and a footnote notes that the original language has no direct equivalent for 'sovereignty.' A historian she reads argues the two parties understood the agreement differently.
535 words, about 3 min5The Digital Archive Trap
A student's History Project examines how a 1980s public health campaign was reported in newspapers. She has assembled 60 digitised articles from an online archive using keyword searches.
527 words, about 3 min