Newcastle University > Undergraduate > Find a Degree > Module

• Offered for Year: 2020/21

• Module Leader(s): Dr Felix Schulz
• Lecturer: Dr Andy Clark, Dr Samiksha Sehrawat, Dr Bruce Baker, Dr Matt Perry, Professor Jeremy Boulton, Dr Alison Atkinson-Phillips, Dr Fergus Campbell, Ms Anne Redgate

• Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Aims

History Lab I (and its semester two counterpart, History Lab II) is a historical survey taught through case studies. The goal is to teach – and learn – through meaningful microcosm, rather than attempt a whistle-stop tour of everything.

Across the two modules, each member of staff will give three interconnected lectures on a specific case-study from their field: one lecture about a discrete moment/event/issue and its attendant historiography, a second lecture that features primary sources on the same, and a third lecture that features public or private representations of that event as a basis for methodological issues. The integration of these differing dimensions will showcase how historians think and work by highlighting examples of differing historical interpretations and ongoing negotiations with the past.

A key aim of the module is to support students in developing strategies for independent learning: specifically, how to get up to speed with unfamiliar topics quickly. The formative assessments will be geared towards a) summarizing the argument and methodology outlined in the lectures, and b) contextualising the events or people of the case studies in time and space.

Outline Of Syllabus

Topics covered will vary from year-to-year, but most members of History staff will contribute a block of three lectures every year, giving students chance to explore a wide range of different periods, places, and approaches. They will thus be encouraged to draw parallels and see interconnections cross-culturally and cross-culturally, in order to move away from thinking of history in narrowly national or regional terms, a practice which tends to prioritise western histories and/or the Global North.

Each of the two History Lab modules will concentrate on a particular broad theme, with case studies ordered chronologically throughout the semester. Depending on what case studies are scheduled for inclusion in a given year, the themes may therefore change, in order to maintain a clear and coherent ‘fit’ between topics and overall theme.

Themes may include:

•       conflict
•       cities
•       social change
•       radical ideas
•       memory
•       labour
•       health

Case studies may include:

•       The ‘Martyrs’ of Cordoba, 850-859
•       The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-37
•       The Russian Revolution, 1917
•       The Jarrow Crusade, 1936
•       Civil Rights demonstrations in Birmingham, AL, 1963

Teaching Methods

Please note that module leaders are reviewing the module teaching and assessment methods for Semester 2 modules, in light of the Covid-19 restrictions. There may also be a few further changes to Semester 1 modules. Final information will be available by the end of August 2020 in for Semester 1 modules and the end of October 2020 for Semester 2 modules.

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

LECTURE materials will enable students to gain a wider sense of historical argument and debate and how such debates operate, which also allows them to develop comparisons between different historiographical debates.

Small scale online discussion: Are Workshop-like and will focus on the key practical skills associated with the study of History, including: note-taking, academic reading, summarising, writing bibliographies, essay planning and writing, document analysis.

SURGERY TIME: The module leader will make themselves available over the course of the module to see students individually on issues concerning them, although we expect this will focus on preparation for assessments.

Assessment Methods

Please note that module leaders are reviewing the module teaching and assessment methods for Semester 2 modules, in light of the Covid-19 restrictions. There may also be a few further changes to Semester 1 modules. Final information will be available by the end of August 2020 in for Semester 1 modules and the end of October 2020 for Semester 2 modules.

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Submitted work tests intended knowledge and skills outcomes, develops key skills in research, reading and writing.

As formative assessment, students will write a position paper of 1000 words for for every other week, which they will bring to class for discussion and peer review, supervised by the workshop leader. Each paper will be based on one of the preceding two case studies: thus, in the Week 2 workshop, students will be able to write about a case study from either week 1 or week 2. At the end of the semester, students will need to choose 3 out of the 4 papers to submit as their summative assessment, having had the chance to revise them based on workshop discussion.

Students will also be divided into groups by their workshop leader, and tasked with working together to produce a timeline of the period covered by the module, and annotating a world map. This is not intended to produce a comprehensive history of everything, but rather to ask students to establish contextual details (how long had the regime been in power, etc) and to think laterally about global history (what else was happening in the world in the 850s, 1530s, 1930s, etc?). This formative assessment will be posted to a Blackboard Community, and remain available for the cohort to return to (and supplement, technology allowing!) throughout their degree.

All Erasmus students at Newcastle University are expected to do the same assessment as students registered for a degree.
Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. This will take the form of an alternative assessment, as outlined in the formats below:

Modules assessed by Coursework and Exam:
The normal alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be one essay in addition to the other coursework assessment (the length of the essay should be adjusted in order to comply with the assessment tariff); to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Modules assessed by Exam only:
The normal alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be two 2,000 word written exercises; to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Modules assessed by Coursework only:
All semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be expected to complete the standard assessment for the module; to be submitted no later than 12pm Friday of week 12. The essays should be set so as to assure coverage of the course content to date.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending the whole academic year or semester 2 are required to complete the standard assessment as set out in the MOF under all circumstances.

Reading Lists

• HIS1102's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• HIS1102's Timetable