This assessment task is an important ‘scaffold’ for your unit project. It assesses your ability to select and refine a research question, and identify appropriate forms and sources of evidence to answer it. The aim is to develop a question for your major project. Please read the instructions for that assessment task to assist in directing your energies in this one. The proposal must be no more than 800 words and contain the following information:

1. your research context and focus (eg. local/ national/ transnational/ global, time and place, event/ person/ subject)?

2. your key historiographical concepts and ideas (eg. gender, post-modernism, post-colonialism, Marxism)

3. the key historians working in the field. List at least five works (books, book chapters or journal articles) important to your study. (You will need to do much more research for the actual project, but here you should list some key works.)

4. a plan for limiting the scope of the project (ie. How will you keep it to a manageable size?)

5. questions that you have at this stage.

The online discussion task, undertaken through the MHIX300 unit website, tests your ability to communicate ideas, your appreciation and comprehension of the themes and concepts discussed in the course, your ability to critically assess and evaluate the arguments of others, and your ability to clearly articulate your thoughts. It is also a task that monitors your progress across the unit topics. You are expected to do the weekly readings, participate in weekly discussions and make postings within the time frame of each discussion topic. These begin on Monday of the discussion week and run through to the following Sunday. You should look to answer at least two of the set questions each week, as well as engaging with the posts of other students. Each individual post should be kept to a maximum of 150 words. A professional and courteous approach towards staff and fellow students is expected at all times.

The Historiography Project is the major assessment task in this unit. You must devise an original historiographical research question (developed in your project proposal), based on an area of interest from previous history study that you have completed at university level, and drawing on the historiographical material covered in this unit. Conducting original research is central to the project, but you should not look for a ‘right’ answer in solving a historical dilemma. Instead this is an experimental project – what would, for eg., a post-modern, big history, cultural history, post-colonial or gendered account of the bombing of Hiroshima look like? The aim here is to develop a strong interpretive historiographical argument, not to find the ‘truth’ about a particular event. You will need to draw on both historiographical and empirical secondary evidence to stake a persuasive position. The word length for the paper is 3,500 words. The weekly discussions in the unit are intended to 'scaffold' the development of your unit project, as is the earlier assessment task. You should consult with your convenor during the first three weeks of the study period as you formulate your project. Your essay should be fully referenced in line with the unit’s referencing guidelines. Marks will be deducted for inadequate or incorrect referencing

The aim of this task is to assess your ability to communicate your research beyond an academic audience, and to imagine the broader application for your work after university. Most of you will eventually take your history skills into a range of occupations (teaching, museum work, the public service, policy and government work, filmmaking, etc.) - this task is designed to give you practice at formulating your ideas for diverse audiences. For the task, you need to take your historiogaphical project and recast it in a different form. More details will be provided when the exam is released on Friday of Week 12. You will have one week to complete the task.