Historian’s Craft Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course introduces students to key aspects of historical methodology. Working closely with a member of the history faculty, students will be introduced to this historian’s craft, the sources they work on and the methods and analytical approaches that they use in their work. Students will also be introduced to key thinkers and issues in the discipline of history. In this way students will both learn about the discipline of history and, by working alongside a member of faculty, come to understand what it’s actually like to be a historian.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures/seminars 

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR 

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE. 

Summative Assessments

For the written assignment and portfolio, students will gather, discuss and analyse information, placing it in its wider cultural, institutional and historical context and reflecting critically on the usefulness and applicability of relevant methodological approaches.

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Bentley, M. (1999) Historiography: An Introduction. London: Routledge. 
• Collingwood, R. G. (1994) The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
• de Groot, J. (2009) Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture, Abingdon: Routledge. 
• Jordanova, L. (2000) History in Practice, London: Arnold.

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• History and Gender 
• Oral History and Social Memory 
• Comparative History 
• Historical Controversies
• Annales School and Nouvelle Histoire
• Microhistory and narrativity in history
• Environmental history