HSC History Extension study guide

HSC History Extension · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

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. Candidates sample the work of various writers, historians and others involved in the practice of history, and then apply that understanding to their own inquiry. The course has two sections: Constructing History, which is explored through one case study with reference to three identified areas of debate and the key questions, and the History Project, an individual investigative project focusing on an area of changing historical interpretation. Topics on this exam: Constructing History (case study) and History Project. The HSC History Extension study guide has 2 sections and about 844 words.

Constructing History: The Case Study as Historiographical Argument

The case study (for example, a contested event, a historian, a school of interpretation, or a public history controversy) is not a topic to summarise. It is a test of whether you can explain how history is constructed: how evidence is selected, how interpretations are shaped by context, ideology, method and audience, and why historians disagree. Name the key concepts explicitly: evidence and sources (primary/secondary, provenance, reliability, silences), interpretation and perspective , historiographical debate , methodology , context (political, social, institutional), agency and causation , representation and memory , and the purpose of history (professional, national, public, commemorative). Retelling the events of the case study instead of analysing the historiography.

422 words, about 2 min 02

The History Project: Designing an Independent Historical Inquiry

The History Project is an extended independent inquiry in which you define a historical question, locate and evaluate sources, construct an argument, and reflect on the process of doing history. It rewards methodological self-awareness as much as content. The concepts you must command are: research question and scope , historiographical positioning (what debates your question enters), source selection and evaluation (provenance, purpose, audience, reliability, corroboration, silences), methodology (how you will analyse evidence), argument and synthesis , referencing and acknowledgement of sources , and reflection on the historian's role . A topic, not a question.

422 words, about 2 min