Undergraduate - UnitATS4301 - Reading and writing history

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

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Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	History
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2014 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Sarah Mirams

Notes

Previously coded HSY4730

Synopsis

This unit is designed to improve your understanding of the craft of writing history. The emphasis throughout is on reading history across different periods and places in order to appreciate the strategies used in the writing of history. A variety of styles and genres of historical writing will be studied, in order to analyse some of the key elements of historical prose, such as story-telling, scene-setting, characterisation, placing oneself in the text, documentation and the onus of proof. The unit also encourages self-conscious reflection about style, prose and voice, and has workshops designed to improve and extend students own experience of writing history.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit students will be able to:

Demonstrate their ability to examine issues of historiography and method through a critical reading of selected historians.
Analyse some of the key elements of historical prose, such as story-telling, beginnings and endings, transitions, scene-setting, characterisation, placing oneself in the text, addressing different readerships, documentation and the onus of proof, irony and indirection, the use of different voices and tropes, formal and colloquial prose.
Demonstrate a high level of development of practical skills in reading and writing historical prose.