HIS4712 - The Historian's Craft

Objectives:

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:
Demonstrate a broad awareness of the methodologies and practices appropriate to rigorous historical investigation
Show an understanding of the range of primary sources available to the historian and the limitations and advantages of these sources
Become familiar with historians’ approaches to historical research and how these might be employed in interpreting historical sources
Present group debate and a report on their findings
Use appropriate ICT at a basic level to practice discrimination between highly relevant and valuable, and superficial or less rigorous materials.

Content:

The module introduces students to the processes of historical investigation and the debates that emerge through a case study (e.g. the Formation of Britain, or Victorian Leeds). A variety of skills are developed including hypothesis testing and debate, formation and revision of supported argument, assessment of change and continuity, and addressing the nature and practice of history, through the case study. Students analyse a broad range of primary sources, qualitative and quantitative, considering the best methods of interpretation of each type of source, and assessing their value to historians.

Learning and Teaching Information:

Learning will be supported through guided workshops using primary sources, including video/ICT/digital humanities resources, a dedicated library session on the skills of accessing and citing appropriate digital resources, and student report-back sessions, framed by introductory plenaries. The primary sources will include qualitative sources, such as descriptive accounts, leaflets and social commentary, Acts of Parliament, Parliamentary Papers, material culture (available through virtual museums sites), maps, charters etc., and quantitative materials such as statistical or population data.

Lectures and Workshops
Hours: 30
Intended Group size: 30

Group discussions/debate
Hours: 2
Intended Group size: 5

Guided independent study
Hours: 168

Further details relating to assessment
Assessment 1 – Directed activities: these consist of weekly tasks that must be completed and submitted for inspection at timetabled sessions each week. The assessment will be assessed on a pass/fail basis with a pass requiring at least 75% of all weekly tasks to be completed successfully. A pass will lead to the full award of 10% towards the final module mark. A fail in directed activities will contribute 0% to the final mark.
The group oral presentation will comprise a class debate centred on historiographical issues relating to the topic, and use supporting, critically-assessed, primary sources and take in total 2hours for the whole class.
The report, with specified headings, will focus on a key question, such as, for a case study on the Formation of Great Britain: ‘Critically evaluate the primary sources available to scholars to interpret the Unions that formed Great Britain. Discuss with reference to at least two different countries.’ It will require students to rely on selected examples of the primary sources that have been discussed in class in their answer. That answer must assess the usefulness of the primary sources to the historian.

Assessment:

001 Directed activities sem 2 10%
002 Group Oral debate 15 mins equiv per individual sem 2 wk 27 35%
003 Report 1 x 2500 words sem 2 wk 28 55%

Fact File

Module Coordinator - Prof. Maureen Meikle
Level - 4
Credit Value - 20
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered - 4S2

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