Hey !!
I'm a year 11 student, and I have just got my historical investigation assessment, but we have to present it in an interactive seminar and I was wondering if you had any tips on that?? Or even ideas, I don't know where to begin Also, I'm having trouble coming up with a focus question, and even choosing a topic/personality (I'm leaning towards Fidel Castro), but I'm just not sure.
thank you so much !!!
Hey there!
Omg I remember doing the History Project (I did mine on the Romanovs). I'm not sure how your school is doing it but for us, we had to come up with two essay questions (a 'describe' and 'assess' questions) and submit two essays. Here's how I would suggest approaching the task:
1. Pick a topic.Unfortunately you can't go past anywhere until you have a starting point. You said you're leaning towards Fidel Castro- that's an interesting topic! As long as you like the topic, you're more than willing to research it. Just make sure it's not on the HSC syllabus because they won't let you do a HSC topic since you'll get a 'head start.' And to be honest, I changed my topic a few times. I went from Napoleonic Wars, to Unification of Prussia, to Indonesian Independence, before going to the Romanovs. But if you're struggling to come up with a topic, take a look at the previous Modern History syllabus and see if there were any topics that piqued your interest. Or maybe take a look at the Prelim syllabus and choose a topic that your class hasn't or won't be covering. You should be choosing your topic because you're interested in it.
2. Do some background reading.By this, I mean do some light research. Using Fidel Castro as an example, maybe look in to, what he did? What period of time was he around? Any biographical details? Anything interesting happening to Castro? Even just skimming through a biography.com website or even googling him and reading the Wikipedia snippet you get in your search results can help you get an idea of who he was, or what he did. This applies to if you wanna do an event- look at when it occurred, who were the main people involved etc.
3. Coming up with focus question(s).You shouldn't be coming up with focus questions until you're comfortable with your chosen topic, hence my suggestion on background reading. If you know you're gonna do Fidel Castro (or any other topic), use your background knowledge of him to give yourself a direction. So my 'describe' question was: describe the climate in Russia during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II. Nice and simple. See how my question gives me a direction in where I should go? This means when I do my research, I should look for common themes between my information and see if I can categorise them in themes. I structured my essay by social, political and economic climate. My 'assess' question was: assess the fact that the fall of the Romanov dynasty was inevitable. Coming up with an 'assess' question was more challenging since I had to use my information and again, see any common themes. I could've done 'assess the impacts of Tsar Nicholas II.' However, my question was more challenging because it came from my idea of 'What if the Romanov dynasty didn't fall apart?' I was interested in answering this question, so I turned it into an 'assess' question.
When it comes to your focus question(s), it should be based on where you wanna go and a question that YOU wanna answer because you're interested in the topic.
4. Research. Research. RESEARCH.Here comes the inevitable part of the investigation. Researching. Don't limit yourself to books and journal articles- look at Youtube videos, documentaries, podcasts. There are so many sources out there you can actually include in your reference list! For example, I used to put down Youtube videos as just 'Youtube videos' in my reference list and tbh, it doesn't look too nice because of the reputation Youtube has. But these days, I put it under 'video file'- it sounds more professional and doesn't sound too informal. And DON'T FORGET TO TAKE NOTES! I still keep my two plastic sleeves of notes and photocopies from textbooks. This makes things easier when you're planning out your essay (or however you wanna present your information).
5. Pulling things together.I would suggest planning when doing this part. Go back through your notes and see if there is any relationship between events. Going back to my example, I actually did some research on the previous Tsars to see if there was any reason why Russia was falling apart by the time Tsar Nicholas II came to power. My first argument started off with Tsar Alexander II's reformations because it allowed more people to be more educated and freed the serfs, which then linked with the fact that more educated people = realisation that autocracy wasn't the way to go, then talked about the Russo-Japanese war etc. Essentially, my thesis was that the fall was inevitable because of an accumulation of factors.
Maybe Fidel Castro (or whoever you choose) may not work out like mine did, but it's good to see if there is a relationship between events. Maybe even go back and see if there were any issues in Cuba prior to Castro's ascension to power and see if that affected him in any shape or form.
Anyways, I think I babbled on too much, but I hope this helps!