History+2.2+Communicate+Historical+Ideas



The Second part of "Bringing Him Back to Life". You are creating a display for the Returned Servicemen's Association. Turn your key questions into Historical Ideas. Make sure your obituary is written at the time of his death.


 * I magine that you have been asked to complete a display for an Anzac Day display at your local Returned Services Association clubroom. Select ONE of the servicemen about whom you gathered information in previous tasks. Select relevant historical information to complete the following presentation exercise: **

The historical ideas could be like: He was part of a NZ fighting force that left on troop ships destined to.... He was a young man, like many NZ boys, who died sacrificing their entire adult lives for a cause they believed in He was part of a NZ fighting force that operated in ...... to achieve.........
 * (a) __An Obituary__ **
 * Write an obituary for your selected servicemen. Your obituary should be approximately 150-200 words. The obituary should communicate clearly a RANGE OF RELEVANT KEY HISTORICAL IDEAS, WITH ACCURATE SUPPORTING EVIDENCE, derived from your inquiry, and may include some invented details which MUST BE HISTORICALLY REALISTIC. **


 * The obituary must include the following details: **
 * -An identification of the serviceman, which would include his name, rank, unit and age at death. **
 * -Personal information about the serviceman **
 * -Details about his war experience, such as theatre of war operations, length of service and any awards for bravery **
 * -local and family connections. **
 * -A concluding comment about the community's view of his service. **
 * You should aim to write this obituary in an appropriate format and/or style, which includes: **
 * -formal language which clearly communicates historical information **
 * -Respectful writing style. **
 * -Appropriate structure, such as a suitable introduction and conclusion, and paragraphs containing relevant and **
 * accurate historical information. **


 * (b) __Historical Context__ **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Provide a formal written account of approximately 300-400 words, which communicates clearly a range of relevant key historical ideas, __with accurate supporting evidence,__ which describes the battle or campaign in which your chosen serviceman was killed or died. This account must cover: **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">-the strategic purpose of the battle or campaign - - - EVIDENCE EVIDENCE EVIDENCE **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">-the role of NZ forces in this campaign - -- - - - - --EVIDENCE EVIDENCE EVIDENCE **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">-The outcome of this battle - - - - - - - - - - - - - EVIDENCE EVIDENCE EVIDENCE **


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Your chart must have an appropriate and prominent title. Any photographs or illustrations must have suitable original captions that relate the photograph/illustration to the battle and/or individual. There must be evidence of care and thought in the layout and presentation of the wall chart. **


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">On the Wall Chart you must use appropriate historical conventions consistently and accurately, including correct use of names, titles and dates. **


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A bibliography must also be completed and attached to the rear of the Wall Chart. **

__<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">In this activity you must: __ <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">-Communicate clearly a range of relevant key historical ideas, with accurate supporting evidence. Just like when you write an essay, you write a Statement and then have to back your point of view with examples and analysis of those examples. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">-You must use these key historical ideas to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the historical context. [NZ soldiers involvement and experience of WW1]. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">-You must present the historical ideas and evidence, consistently applying features of an appropriate historical format and/or style. [This means a wall chart for an RSA display as a format. And an obituary which pretends to be written at the time of the soldier's death]. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">-Use appropriate historical conventions consistently and accurately. [Create a bibliography either in APA or MLA] This can be glued to the back of your wall chart so it doesn't spoil your product!

L__OOK TO THE BOTTOM FOR INFORMATION EXPLAINING WHAT A KEY IDEA IS__

Communicate historical ideas to demonstrate understanding of an historical context
Assessors are reminded that Achievement Standards must always be read in conjunction with the Explanatory Notes. Unless an Explanatory Note contains terms such as 'could include' or 'e.g.' the requirements of the Explanatory Notes are mandatory. In many cases it is not possible to be specific as to requirements at the national level. Very often the context will determine what is appropriate. In these cases assessors need to make a professional judgement that takes into account such aspects as the degree of difficulty of the history being studied and the range and nature of evidence available. Whether the assessor's judgements are accurate according to the national standard can be verified in the external moderation process and adjustments made by assessors, if necessary, next time the Standard is assessed. Please note that assessors may at any time, submit up to ten additional pieces of student work, so that they can ask specific questions about making assessor judgements. This document aims clarify many of the points raised in various past National Moderator annual reports.
 * ~ Achievement ||~ Achievement with Merit ||~ Achievement with Excellence ||
 * Communicate clearly some relevant key historical ideas, with accurate supporting evidence, to demonstrate understanding of the historical context. || Communicate clearly a range of relevant key historical ideas, with accurate supporting evidence, to demonstrate depth and/or breadth of understanding of the historical context. || Communicate clearly a range of relevant key historical ideas, with accurate supporting evidence, to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the historical context. ||
 * Present historical ideas and evidence, applying some features of an appropriate historical format and/or style. || Present historical ideas and evidence, applying most features of an appropriate historical format and/or style. || Present historical ideas and evidence, consistently applying features of an appropriate historical format and/or style. ||
 * Use appropriate historical conventions. || Use appropriate historical conventions accurately. || Use appropriate historical conventions consistently and accurately. ||

The First Achievement Criterion
For the first achievement criterion, note that Explanatory Note 4 of the Achievement Standard does not allow the standard to be awarded for communicating narrative only. Key ideas that have supporting evidence are required for each level of achievement. For a discussion of what is meant by key ideas and supporting evidence please see the clarification of [|key historical ideas with supporting evidence]. The requirements at Merit and Excellence level are that key ideas and evidence demonstrate understanding of the topic. Requirements at those levels do not concern the volume of evidence communicated. Communicating key ideas with evidence is taken as being sufficient for explicitly identifying those ideas (see Explanatory Note 3 of the Achievement Standard). This means that students are not required specifically to identify their key historical ideas (for example, by highlighting or underlining). If the assessor can identify key ideas and supporting evidence that meets the standard, then the standard may be awarded. If a student attempts to identify key ideas, but the identification is not accurate, the standard may still be awarded at any achievement level if there ARE, nevertheless, key ideas present in the evidence. The most common form of supporting evidence for key historical ideas is text written by the student which communicates his/her expansion of the key ideas. However, it may also be in the form of photographs, quotations, graphs, maps, etc. What constitutes a 'range' of relevant key historical ideas (required for Merit and Excellence levels) will be governed by the historical context and the nature of the communication. At Level 2 the key ideas and supporting evidence that are communicated need to demonstrate a student's understandings of the context. Note that the standard requires that level of understanding is to be taken into account. The requirements vary from Achievement up to Excellence level, so assessors must use their professional judgement about the degree of understanding communicated. Where the use of more than minimal plagiarism can be proved, the standard should not be awarded since the student's own understandings are not being communicated.

The Second Achievement Criterion
For the second achievement criterion, only 'some features' of the required format are required for credit at Achievement level. Teachers need to ensure that the features of formats and styles that may be required for this Achievement Standard are presented to students as part of the teaching and learning process. For instance, it should not be taken for granted that students will know how a lawyer might address a court or how a //This Is Your Life// programme is presented (or even what a newspaper looks like). For the communication of formats such as newspaper front pages or magazine articles, students often use modern formats. Unless more historically accurate formats have been both taught and specifically required in the assessment materials, students should not be penalised for having a format that is not historically accurate. Conversely, when a student has, through his/her own researching, discovered the historically accurate format, assessors should take that into account while making an holistic judgement for the second achievement criterion. Apart from format/style considerations, evidence communicated should largely be appropriate - a professional judgement is required on this. For instance, when making an overall assessment judgement regarding the front page of a newspaper that purports to have been printed during World War I, an advertisement for computers would be considered inappropriate. Occasionally the question arises as to the appropriateness of evidence provided in a slide show (such as PowerPoint). Since the nature of PowerPoint is to provide key ideas rather than lots of detail, presentations that contain a large number of slides that contain extensive text, probably in a very small font, could be deemed 'inappropriate'. Assessors need to ensure that the format of communication that is required will not prevent achievement of the second achievement criterion. This can apply, also, in the case of a pamphlet being the required communication format. Especially in the case where a pamphlet is handwritten, the format may prevent the student from providing sufficient evidence to achieve. In the case of PowerPoint presentations, assessors may wish to consider requiring students to use the 'Notes' function of the program (available at the foot of each slide). In that case, key ideas could be provided on each slide (which also responds very well to the requirements of the first achievement criterion) and evidence that supports these key ideas provided in the Notes section. If the presentation is printed out for assessment (and moderation) purposes, each slide and its accompanying 'Notes' can be printed together. If the required format is an oral presentation of some kind, please ensure, with a prior test, that the evidence recorded for moderation purposes is clearly audible.

The Third Achievement Criterion
For the third achievement criterion, appropriate historical conventions used may be determined by the nature of the activity and '... could include the correct use of names, titles, dates, numbers, terms, footnotes, bibliography' (Explanatory Note 9 of the Achievement Standard). Since the Explanatory Note is imprecise, assessors need to make a professional judgement on the matter. As elsewhere, the assumption is made that when students are required in task instructions to conform to historical conventions, what is meant by appropriate use of numbers, names, dates, etc., will have been taught as part of the teaching and learning programme. If a task's instructions have not specifically required a bibliography (which may be appropriate with some communication formats, such as a pamphlet, or perhaps the use of bibliographies has already been demonstrated for another Achievement Standard) then students should not be unduly penalised, and perhaps not penalised at all. The omission of a bibliography should be taken into account as part of an holistic judgement regarding the use of historical conventions. In the same way, if a bibliography has been specifically required, but not provided, this does not automatically mean that the judgement for the third achievement criterion must be Not Achieved. Historians justifiably place emphasis on the importance of a bibliography. However, if a student demonstrates in various other ways that there is a clear understanding of other historical conventions then the standard may still be able to be awarded. The question also arises as to whether a bibliography, provided but incorrectly formatted, is to be penalised. Again, this needs to become part of an holistic judgement concerning the use of historical conventions. If bibliographic formatting has been specifically taught then the assessor judgement regarding historical formatting may place more weight on this particular inaccuracy.

Must Not Be An Essay
Explanatory Note 10 requires that the format of communication for this Achievement Standard must not be an essay. When assessors require a format such as 'a report' or 'an article' instructions need to ensure that requirements clearly differentiate the format from that of an essay. This will ensure that students are clear that an essay format is not acceptable. [|« previous]

=History - key historical ideas with evidence=

Achievement Standards 90210, 90466 and 90655
History teachers need to clarify for students the communication of key historical ideas in Achievement Standards 90210, 90466 and 90655. The two main issues of concern are:
 * 1) The nature of key historical ideas, and
 * 2) Whether students are required to identify key historical ideas as well as communicate them.

The nature of key historical ideas
Explanatory Note 3 of AS90210 states that key ideas are "generalisations derived from evidence within an historical context." The Explanatory Note for AS90466 states that historical ideas "could be concepts or generalisations derived from within the historical context of the study" such as nationalism, urbanisation and an event such as an assassination. In Explanatory Note 4 of AS90655 key historical ideas may include, for example, social class and religion. As a definition of key historical ideas, the EN for AS90210 comes closest to providing clarity. The examples provided in the explanatory notes of the other two standards need further explanation. As an example, "social class", stated or identified in isolation, does not provide a "key idea", only a possible context for a key idea. An example of a key idea based on social class would be, > "Social class was an important factor in Victorian England." An example of a key idea based on nationalism would be, > "Nationalism was an important motivating force for the North Vietnamese during the 1960s." From these examples of key ideas, it can be seen that when a student simply highlights the word, "nationalism", a key idea is not being identified. The whole sentence that expresses an idea would need to be highlighted before an idea becomes apparent. It is true that "nationalism" may imply a wide range of possible understandings, but the understandings need to be explicit, not implied, to show that a student has an understanding and can express that understanding in a key idea. Most commonly, a key idea appears as the topic sentence of a well-constructed paragraph. In such a paragraph, the rest of the paragraph will be expanding on the key idea and providing evidence that supports the key idea/topic sentence. That supporting evidence is the other part of the requirement of the first achievement criterion of the three achievement standards under discussion. The following paragraph begins with a topic sentence that states a key idea and the rest of the paragraph provides supporting evidence for the key idea: > The British were keen to find ways to break the Western Front deadlock. Superior sea power seemed to be the answer. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, suggested several ways to use British naval resources. One of these was an assault on the Dardanelles. It is also possible that a key idea can be identified in a different way. If, for example, the paragraph above had a heading, "British Search for a Solution to the Western Front Deadlock", then the heading itself contains a relevant key idea. The rest of the paragraph then needs to expand on the nature of the British search (such as by describing the attack on Turkey). A heading of only, "British Search", has insufficient depth for the communication of a key idea. Students commonly write history paragraphs that contain few, if any, key ideas. Such writing is what the achievement standards describe as "narrative", which is insufficient to gain credit for these three achievement standards. The extent to which there is a mixture of narrative on one hand, and key ideas with supporting evidence on the other, is what teachers need to take into account. The following student's description contains narrative only, NOT key ideas with supporting evidence: > At around 12.17 pm on Easter Monday last week, a group of men were seen gathering on top of Thomas's Hill in Phoenix Park for a game of football. This seemed a perfectly innocent activity until one of them took the sentry guarding the Magazine Fort (a British Army arsenal) by surprise and disarmed him. > The group of men then charged inside the Fort, stealing as many weapons as they could find. The soldiers inside the guardroom were made to raise their hands and face the wall, while one rebel placed a bag of gelignite against the wall of the explosives storeroom and set the fuses alight. Everyone was ordered to evacuate the building. > Some of the men then sped away on bicycles, while other rebels left in a in a horse-drawn hansom cab as a resounding thud marked the start of a rebellion that ... The intention of the requirement to provide key ideas with supporting evidence is to ensure that students gain some understanding from the history they are studying, that they are seeing "the big picture", or the "so what" of history. Providing key ideas and supporting evidence will require students to process the evidence they have found, thus ensuring their understanding and helping to prevent mindless copying of sources. At Levels 2 and 3 (90466 and 90655) the requirement to demonstrate understanding is included in the first assessment criterion along with key ideas and supporting evidence.

Whether students are required to identify key historical ideas as well as communicate them.
There is some confusion as to whether students need to identify key historical ideas as well as communicate them. In AS90210, the first assessment criterion at Excellence level requires students to "Identify a range of relevant key ideas that thoroughly covers the context ..." but Explanatory Note 3 states, "//Key ideas// are generalisations derived from evidence within an historical context. Narrative by itself is insufficient, that is, telling what happened in an historical event is not by itself identifying a relevant key idea." In AS90466, the first assessment criterion at Merit and Excellence levels requires students to "Communicate clearly a range of relevant key historical ideas ..." But Explanatory Note 3 states, "//Communicate clearly// means explicitly identify key historical ideas, for example through headings, subheadings, topic sentences, or through appended explanations". In AS90655 the first assessment criterion states, "Communicate explicitly and succinctly a comprehensive range of relevant key historical ideas ..." and Explanatory Note 3 states "//Communicate explicitly// means the communication of an idea clearly and precisely." From this, it may be deduced that: Whether students need to identify the key ideas they are communicating is somewhat ambiguous. A sensible solution is to allow a continuation of the current common practice for each of these achievement standards. Students must not be denied credit for these standards on the grounds of their failure to **identify**, specifically, key ideas and supporting evidence. They do, however, still need to **communicate** key ideas and support each key idea with evidence. Some students attempt to identify key ideas, but do so incorrectly. Elsewhere in the student's evidence, however, key ideas may have been communicated successfully, though the student has not recognised this. In these cases, credit may still be awarded.
 * the first assessment criterion of AS90210 requires students to identify (not just communicate) key ideas but Explanatory Note 3 suggests that communication is the means to be used to "identify" key ideas
 * Explanatory Note 3 of AS90466 clarifies the necessity to identify (not just communicate) key ideas, though the first assessment criterion does not state this specifically
 * AS90655 does not appear to require the specific identification of key ideas, either in the first assessment criterion or in the Explanatory Notes.