Class of 2010 - Welcome!

Hi guys...sorry it has taken me a while to get back onto the blog. Term 1 has been rather hectic. Anyhow, welcome to your last year of high school, and a very fun three terms of Ancient History. I will be uploading powerpoints, resources and links onto this blog, so please feel free to access it whenever you want for revision/study/extension purposes.

I wish you all the best this year, and look forward to sharing some historical knowledge with you. First up: the PowerPoint on archaeology at Pompeii...you can watch it here, or download it from this link.

Archaeology in Pompeii

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Year 12 Ancient - The Exam...

Well, it seems that the exam was quite do-able...no major surprises, apart perhaps from the tourism at Pompeii question. Hopefully you all remembered that we did the gerousia in the trial, and I'm sure that Xerxes' foreign policy was a topic you were completely fed up with. The Greek World questions were both excellent, I thought, although the use of 'to what extent...' rather than 'evaluate' may have thrown you off a little.

Anyway, hope it all went well, and all the best for the rest of your exams. It's been quite a journey...

Year 12 Ancient - The End of The Road

For all the Ancient students sitting their exams on Monday:

GOOD LUCK!

Year 12 Modern - Recent Exam Questions

Hi folks. I thought I would post the Germany and Conflict in Europe essay questions that have been in the past three years' HSC exams. The new syllabus has only been examined since 2006, so these are the best questions to give you an idea of what they will ask you.

Read them, have a go at answering them, and focus on the wording of the questions, and the dot points that they cover.

Germany:

2008: (a) Account for the successes and failures of democracy in Germany in the period 1918– 1933. OR (b) To what extent can Nazism in power be seen as totalitarianism in the period 1933– 1939?

2007: (a) Explain how and why German social and cultural life changed in the period 1923-1939. OR (b) Assess the impact of Nazism on German foreign policy in the period 1933-1939.

2006: (a) Assess the importance of nationalism as a cause of the failure of democracy in Germany in the period 1918–1934. OR (b) To what extent was Hitler responsible for the development and implementation of Nazi racist policies in Germany in the period to 1939?

Conflict in Europe (only tested since 2006)

2008: (a) Evaluate the view that the air war determined the outcome of the European War. OR (b) Assess the significance of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact to the outbreak of war in 1939.

2007: (a) Evaluate the view that Operation Barbarossa was the major turning point of the European war. OR (b) To what extent did Allied and Axis strategies during World War II affect civilians?

2006: (a) Evaluate the view that the dictators Hitler and Mussolini were primarily responsible for the tensions that led to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939. OR (b) To what extent was the Soviet Union (Russia) responsible for the Allied victory in the conflict in Europe?

Year 12 Ancient/Modern - Revision Advice

Hi Ancients and Moderns. The end is very nearly nigh, as we cruise into the home straight before the HSC next month.

We have started our revision in class (the whole syllabus has been tackled - hurray!) but you should now be formulating your home study plans.

Everyone has a different way of learning, but I will give you some very general tips.

1) First, print off a copy of the four relevant syllabus pages for your class topics. You can access them via the link to each syllabus to the left of this post.

Ancient: Pompeii, Sparta, Greek World 500-44BC, Xerxes
Modern: WW1, Germany, Conflict in Europe, Albert Speer

2) For each dot point in the syllabus, take a sheet of A4 paper, and try to write a page of notes on that point. You could do it as a mindmap, or as full sentences, or as dot points. Whatever works best.

3) If you can't scrape together a page of notes - you need to study that topic in more detail! Go back to your books and do some reading!

4) Then, have a go at some past exams. Go to this page to access past exam papers, from 2001 to 2008:

http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/hsc_exams/

5) Download the papers, try writing responses in Word (set yourself the same time limit as you would have in the HSC), and email them to me. I will gladly read and comment on them.

6) Get used to all of the relevant terms used by the Board of Studies. Go to this page to make yourself familair with words like describe, outline, assess, explain, evaluate, account for:

http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/glossary_keywords.html

7) Make some judgements about what we have learned this year. As you are revising, ask yourself, 'What do I think about this?' Was Xerxes a tyrant? Was Speer a self-serving opportunist? Was Hitler a madman? Did the Great Depression cause the rise of the Nazi party? Was Sparta a democracy? Was the battle of Salamis really a turning point? Why did Germany lose WW1? Was the Treaty of Versailles too harsh? Did the Soviet Union win WW2 for the Allies? What is the most important building excavated at Pompeii? Should we display the casts of human bodies pioneered by Fiorelli?

Remember - take a stance, and support it with evidence.

8) For each topic, memorise four or five short and general quotes. Quotes always look good in an essay! Find some that you could sue in a wide range of essays. Maybe some Pliny for Pompeii, Herodotus for Xerxes/Greek World, Plutarch for Sparta...

9) If there are gaps in your knowledge - now is the time to fill them. Email me - I'm here to help!

Good luck!!

Year 12 Modern - End of WW2 PowerPoint

As promsied, here is the PowerPoint we watched on Tuesday. It summarises the last few years of the war, from Stalingrad to Berlin:

The End of World War Two

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You can download it here.

Year 12 Modern - The End of World War Two

Hi Modern folks. Welcome back after the trials, and welcome to the end of the war. We are going to polish off the Conflict in Europe topic by the end of next week, and then it's on to some good old-fashioned revision.

First: a few of the online resources we used in class yesterday, inlcuding some rather cool Nazi newsreel footage. I'll put the PowerPoint up soon as well.

You can access an animated map with an overview of WW2 here.

Here is the Youtube clip showing the rescue of Mussolini in 1943:



And here is the clip showing the Battle of Kursk:



And finally, the last film footage of Hitler, awarding medals to some alarmingly young Hitlerjugend members:

Year 12 Ancient - Persepolis

Hi guys, and welcome back after the trials. The verdict seems to be: more on Greek World, more on Xerxes, more on Sparta...which is fine, because that's what we'll be doing. You are getting better and better at Pompeii (you have been tested on it three times, now) but we will come back to that some time before the end of term.

In today's lesson, we looked at this great website from livius.org, focusing on the building and reliefs at Persepolis. it really is worth a closer look, if only to see some of the beautiful ruins that still remain after 2500 years. Click on the links and enjoy.

Year 12 Ancient - Xerxes/Persian Wars Sources

Just a quick post. I have compiled some of the most relevant chunks of Herodotus, to provide some quotes on Xerxes and the Persian Wars.

You can access them here.

All the best in Monday's exam, I'm sure you'll all do wonderfully!

Year 12 Ancient - Xerxes in The Persians

Some more quotes for you to play around with. The following are all from the play The persians, written by Aeschylus (a Greek) who actually fought at Salamis. Despite being fictional, the play is about real events, and gives us a fair idea of the Greek view of Xerxes: tyrannical, impetuous (acted before thinking), ill-fated, and hubristic (let his pride take him over the edge).

Quotes about Xerxes from the Play The Persians by Aeschylus

“The mighty Xerxes from Darius sprung”

“Deep were the groans of Xerxes when he saw This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound Commanding the wide sea, o'erlook'd his hosts” [watching Salamis]

“Xerxes, ill-fated, led the war”

“Xerxes sent forth the unwise command, The crowded ships unpeopled all the land”

“The impetuous Xerxes, thinning all the land.” [of people, that is]

“The impetuous Xerxes learn'd; these caught his ear With thy great deeds, as winning for thy sons Vast riches with thy conquering spear, while he Tim'rous and slothful, never, save in sport, Lifted his lance, nor added to the wealth Won by his noble fathers. This reproach Oft by bad men repeated, urged his soul To attempt this war, and lead his troops to Greece.” [This is saying that Xerxes had never done anything of worth, and so he led his troops to Greece to try to secure his legacy]

“The unpeopled land laments her youth By Xerxes led to slaughter, till the realms Of death are gorged with Persians”