Achievement Standard:
- Year 9: When researching, students develop different kinds of questions to frame a historical inquiry.
- Year 10: When researching, students develop, evaluate and modify questions to frame a historical inquiry.
Periscope Link:
Watch on #Periscope: Muliyan History 25/03/2020
What does that mean?
Historical Inquiry: History provides us with a way of thinking about the past. The use of historical inquiry shows students a way to inquire into, organise and explain events that have happened. Historical inquiry is the process of “doing history”.
It is a cyclical process that begins with the asking of guiding historical questions. This is followed by locating and analysing historical sources to establish historical evidence. The historical evidence is then used to construct historical interpretations that seek to answer the guiding historical questions.
There are six generic questions which you can use to guide your inquiry:
- What were the major forces and developments during this period?
- What caused these major forces and developments?
- Who were the key players involved?
- How did the developments influence peoples’ decisions and actions and vice-versa?
- How did people’s views and perspectives shape their interpretation of these developments?
- How did these developments impact societies?
Note: In this context, force is talking about things that pressure a historical event into happening. For example, we might be talking about the “market forces” that surround economic recessions.
What are we going to do with this?
Step 1: Plan a topic:
Write/record a short passage (50 to 100 words long) on what topic you are going to research. Some examples:
- What positive stories could other people tell about my past?
- Who lived on these lands (Canberra) first and how do we know?
- How has the community on these lands changed? What features have been lost and what features have been retained?
- How has Women’s fashion responded to world war II? (Wartime wardrobes)
- The evolution of the skateboard
- Your topic from your timeline last week
- Something from your passion project.
Step 2: Choose the three most significant event from your chosen topic and ask the following questions:
- What were the major forces and developments during this period?
- What caused these major forces and developments?
- Who were the key players involved?
- How did the developments influence peoples’ decisions and actions and vice-versa?
- How did people’s views and perspectives shape their interpretation of these developments?
- The early roots of the Yakuza
- How did these developments impact societies/you?
How will you know you are done?
- You will have chosen a topic
- You will have written a short description of your topic
Muliyan 