It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. (Am I talking about the 'force' or History?)

Hey kiddos,
Ms. McCrorie is on to putting together what will happen with you over the next three weeks.  So I'll leave your brains in her capable hands.  Now...as for your TOKy souls...they belong to me in perpetuity.  So I have uploaded little tasks for you to develop your inquiring minds further (read that as: complete for homework).  All of these are to be done on your blogs and I expect all of them completed by the 17th June.

Task 1:  Go to “You Tube”. Type in Memento. Watch Memento 1 (on page 2) and Memento 2 (on page 3) (9:45 each posted by 4ukan4e) in succession.  Answer the following in your blog:

1) If you found yourself in the same situtation as the clips, to what extent do you think you would be able to reconstruct your identify by examining the objects in your room?  What problems would you experience trying to do this, and how similar are they to those facing a historian?
2) How good is your memory, and how reliable do you think it is as a guide to the past?
3) Would you be more inclined to trust an autobiography, or a biography about the same person written by a historian?
4) To what extent do you think that people learn from their mistakes, and to what extent do you think they keep making the same mistakes?

Task 2: Create a table for the pros and cons of History as an area of knowledge.  When you have finished, answer the following questions:

1) What influence do the following have on history?:
Individuals      Chance      Experience      Generation
     What other factors could be important?

2) Niall Ferguson is a historian who has asked “What if…”.  This means one little thing may have helped change the course of history.  Remember our brief discussion of Cleopatra's Nose Theory.  What if....
A. Hitler’s England: What if Germany had invaded Britain in May 1940?
-would Britain have stood up to Hitler?
-would Britons have collaborated?
-would Britain have co-existed with a victorious Hitler?
B. Nazi Europe: What if Nazi Germany had defeated the Soviet Union?
-would Hitler have kept on going?
-how far would German culture have spread?
-who would have stood up to Hitler?
C. Stalin’s War or Peace: What if the Cold War had been avoided?
-would the US have developed nuclear weapons?
-would Stalin have co-operated with Western leaders?
-would Soviet spies have bothered infiltrating the upper echelons of US and UK governments?
D. Camelot continued: What if JFK had lived?
-what kind of President would he have been?
-would civil rights progress have been quicker?
-would Vietnam have turned out differently?
-would he be such an iconic figure?
Are these kinds of considerations useful?

Task 3: What is the reliability of primary and secondary sources: “I was there, so I know!”
Answer/DO the following: 

1) How can the four knowledge tools of perception, language, reason and emotion distort the production of a primary source such as a diary?  Take a look at a diary excerpt from this website http://www.dur.ac.uk/4schools/History/Diary1.htm  and write six statements that you believe are true about the author of the diary.

Traditionally primary sources (from someone who was there at the time) are often thought to be more reliable. This is not true. An objective secondary account is often more reliable than a subjective primary account.

2) Go to “You Tube”. Type in “Schindler’s List. Children Driven Away- Auschwitz. TURN OFF THE SOUND. The clip is 3:40 minutes long.  Write a brief script/narration for the video clip as 'propaganda' for Jews during WWII.  Next write a new script/narration for the video as 'propaganda' for the Nazis.  What is the effect? What language did you use? Were any words value-laden? What would be the purpose of propaganda like this?

3)Take a look at the following pictures of the October Revolution.  Research and tell me why the two men in the second photo have been erased from the first.

4) According to a well-known adage, 'history is written by the victors'.  How different do you think it would be if it were written by the losers instead?

5) Hindsight: “Travel back in Time”.  If you could travel back in time, who would you interview (the person must be dead)?  What questions would you ask them?  What would your questions be influenced by?  Why did you choose that person?

Ok, so there are three tasks for each lesson as homework.  Reminder - I will be checking the blogs in my absence and will not be a very happy Mrs. Mitchell if I find they have not been done.  PS - of course you are to work on your presentations as an ongoing project and it wouldn't hurt to start looking over the essay choices and pick one!

TTFN