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Controversial A2 Personal study

When told by my history teacher that next year, (A2) you could do a pesonal study on anything. I asked if you could do what that austrian guy did and question the existence of the holocaust. He said you could. Has anybody done a controversial personal study such as this?
I believe that the holocaust happened.

Reply 1

sophisti_kate

hmm, would be difficult to get it past the examiner and hard to find decent books on it that you would realistically be able to take notes etc from, but hey you can but try!

Reply 2

nicko88

Yeah I agree...maybe not the best idea for a study....although your study must have some controversy in it to allow for historical debate. Mine is on the responsibility for the Holocaust...specifically the involvement of the German people.

Reply 3

philjw

Well in theory you could, but you probably wouldn't be able to find enough material. It's very hard for A Level students to get any decent primary source research done themselves - I'd stick with something where there is a historical debate and many authors to read and choose from to analyse their views.

Reply 4

gbduo

Don't even go there! That Austrian Historian is currently in court for what he said, it is not really a good idea to base your coursework on a Historians work that is being criticised in a court of Law...it makes it unreliable straight away.

One thing that all (bar one) Historians agree on is that the Holocaust happened, however they disagree on so many other things within the Holocaust that would be much easier to do coursework on!

Its a good idea...but taken sources from someone currently being prosecuted for his work is not a good plan!!!

Graham

Reply 5

WokSz

There is one thing though: Examiners are meant to be entirely unbiased (in theory) and therefore if you put forward an argument with RELEVANT backing up, there shouldn't be a problem. However, personally I would pick a topic a bit easier than the holocaust.

Reply 6

FadeToBlackout

Theoretically, yes.

In practice, no. Although there ARE a fair number of sources on this (David Irving vs. the historical establishment, essentially) it would be very hard to take his position- which he himself retracted, before changing his mind again... :rolleyes:

Basically, it's too controversial a subject. A friend of mine did the Kennedy assassination, looking at primary sources such as the Warren report and so on. Although he had an immense amount of stuff, his form detailing his question and focus- can't remember exactly what it was now- were returned by the examiners about 5 weeks before we were due to write it, and they said that they did not advise him to use that question.

However, there is a way around this.

You could suggest to your friend that he do a more open-ended theory of history question, such as '"History becomes corrupted when the authors select which evidence to use." Discuss.' This lets him look at a variety of sources, for example he can look at the David Irving controversy to illustrate this, and there have been many others in the past. There are many books, too, on the theory and practice of history- "In Defence of History", "What is History", etc etc., and so therer would be a lot to look at.

Reply 7

gbduo

WokSz

But if the sources themselves are unreliable then it does not matter if the examiners are unbiased or not, the source is still unreliable, which makes the argument you are making weaker. Which is the case in this example.

Graham

Reply 8

philjw

Yeah, it's not worth risking your A-Level grade over it. Fine, if you have 100% in your other modules or something, but there's no point being deliberately bolshy about it when you could do something more mainstream.

Also, just to clear things up, David Irving isn't Austrian, he's British.

Reply 9

lucho22

Well I've just finished doing a really obscure topic for my A2 CW and the examiner (although he admitted that he had no idea what I was on about :p:

) said that it was fine... As for controversy - if it's a very far fetched theory that you're trying to support you wont be able to back it up using respected historians (which is part of the criteria) - you also have to evaluate the reliability of these sources - and if you did this you would destroy your line of argument....so it's probably best to choose a topic which can be defended on both sides...

Reply 10

FadeToBlackout

if you really want to do the topic, though, you can still do that as long as you do a more metahistorical question- for example looking whether using a large amount of more unreliable sources is equally good as using one or two reliable ones.

Basically, I think the only way you're going to get to look at this is to do it like this, not studying it as a topic but as an illustration of the practice of history.

Another idea you might consider looking at is how this has altered people's perceptions of History. In essence, Historians are well regarded by people as being earned albeit cut off from the real world. You could look at how this trial, and teh controversy surrounding it, has altered people's perceptions of History. You should be able to find a good deal of articles and opinion pieces, etc., online. Several are by eminent historians such as Richard Evans, who debunked Irving's claims quite well.

Or you could look maybe at how it was reported in the media- a case of History being seen as corrupting, of an explosion of hate against a man who, lets face it, believed (at first) that what he was saying was true.

In short, you are unlikely to be able to look at the controversy itself, but you COULD investigate the EFFECT the controversy has had on things like how History is percieved, efects on teh media, etc.

Reply 11

Magickal_Faerie

MM. Just make sure you can get relevant books on the subject. I ended up doing mine on Anglo-Saxon religion, and because it was an obscure subject I really had trouble finding what i needed. Also, I thought most questions had to begin with 'to what extent' or something similar?

Well, whatever you choose to do, reseaerch it before hand with a clear idea of what you want to do, and make sure you can get hold of relevant sources. Dont forget primary sources - theyre your most important.

Reply 12

cubanarmy

So how does it work, do you create the question yourself, or does it come from the exam board?

Reply 13

G.A.K

I really advise against doing that. For one, if you believe the Holocaust happened it would be hard for you to come across as dubious surely? Wouldn't you be contradicting yourself?

My teacher (an examiner) said not to do things like who shot JFK as the material is limited and you're just playing CSI not historian.

Finally, yes you choose the question yourself & then send it to the examining board (at least for AQA). Explaining how you will go about it & then they send it back to you describing some limitations or whether it will work well.

Reply 14

philjw

cubanarmy

So how does it work, do you create the question yourself, or does it come from the exam board?

For OCR (I don't know about any of the other boards but probably a similar system) you can choose any question, so long as it relates to something after 785 AD, spanning at least 20 years. I think there is a little scope for going outside these guidelines too but that's what it says in our syllabus.

You also have the chance to submit a proposal form to the board detailing your proposed question and main lines of enquiry - this can be useful as the examiner will tell you if the question is appropriate and if it gives sufficient scope for an extended enquiry. If you're lucky sometimes they even give you the name of a historian they suggest you read too :smile:

Reply 15

FadeToBlackout

Bit different for Edexcel, the question didn't have to cover any particular time span. Mine covered less than a year, with 7 very crucial days that I focussed on most.

Reply 16

wattever33

I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.
- Robert J. Oppenheimer (1904-1967), citing from the Bhagavadgita, after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion

Reply 17

G.A.K

wattever33

I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.
- Robert J. Oppenheimer (1904-1967), citing from the Bhagavadgita, after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion

Seeing as you're really "up" on your History, does it ever occur to you that relevance is quite fundamental? Thus, would you like to enlighten us as to why you choose to include that quotation & have been doing such over a number of threads?

Hey? :biggrin: