CAPS FET History

Introduction to the curriculum writing process (March 2010 – January 2011)

Gail Weldon and Rob Siebörger

IntroductionLaunched February-March 2010 – listening campaign end 2009 and subsequent report of the Task Team on the Implementation of the NCS Oct 2009.

Ministerial Project Committee: MPC Committee Member responsible was Dr Ursula Hoadley (UCT) FET History and Geography and Social Sciences; later Prof. Linda Chisholm for FET History.

National DBE appointed 1 person per subject in March: Dr Gail Weldon was appointed to FET History.

A meeting convened at the Department of Basic Education for the launch. No-one had been appointed for GET Social Sciences. Ursula Hoadley appointed the two GET writers, for History and Geography .

Two further writers appointed at the beginning of November 2010 to respond to public comments and finalise the document: A/Prof. Rob Siebörger and Luli Callinicos

Instructions to writers

Reorganise the NCS: 3 policy documents and 1 exam guideline into 1 document.

Create a clear and detailed content framework: for textbooks and teaching.

No OBE – remove reference to Learning Outcomes and Assessment Standards.

Concerns were raised by History and Life Sciences on the emphasis on content to the exclusion of investigation and enquiry.

Rationale and Aims

What is history?

Aims

Citizenship and democracy

Table of Skills

Concepts

What is history?

History is the study of change and development in society over time. The study of history enables us to understand how past human action affects the present and influences our future, and it allows us to evaluate these effects. So, history is about learning how to think about the past, which affects the present, in a disciplined way. History is a process of enquiry. Therefore, it is about asking questions of the past: What happened? When did it happen? Why did it happen then? What were the short-term and long-term results? It involves thinking critically about the stories people tell us about the past, as well as the stories that we tell ourselves.

Citizenship and democracy

The study of history also supports citizenship within a democracy by:

• upholding the values of the South African Constitution and helping people to understand those values;

• reflecting the perspectives of a broad social spectrum so that race, class, gender and the voices of ordinary people are represented;

• encouraging civic responsibility and responsible leadership, including raising current social and environmental concerns;

• promoting human rights and peace by challenging prejudices that involve race, class, gender, ethnicity and xenophobia; and

• preparing young people for local, regional, national, continental and global responsibility.

Aims

The specific aims of history are to create:

• an interest in and enjoyment of the study of the past;• knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the past and the

forces that shaped it;• the ability to undertake a process of historical enquiry based on

skills; and• an understanding of historical concepts, including historical sources

and evidence.

Table of skillsSkills How skills can be achieved

1. Understand the range of sources of information available for studying the past. [LO1 AS2]

By collecting information from different kinds of sources in order to provide a more complete picture. By recognising that the kind of information collected from the various sources provides different perspectives on an event. For example, by finding as many of the following kinds of sources as possible: manuscripts (handwritten diaries, letters and notebooks), printed text (books, newspapers and websites), video or film, photographs, drawings, paintings or cartoons, and oral sources (interviews, stories and songs).

2. Extract and interpret information from a number of sources. [LO1 AS3]

By selecting relevant information for the topic being investigated or from the question being answered. By making sense of the information within its context.

3. Evaluate the usefulness of sources, including reliability, stereotyping and subjectivity. [LO1 AS4]

By deciding on the reliability of the information. Reliability involves whether one can trust the sources, in terms of who created them and the purpose for which they were created. Identifying a stereotype involves recognising widely held but fixed or oversimplified (incorrect) ideas of what someone or something is like. Identifying subjectivity involves discovering the extent to which a source represents the particular view or circumstances of its author or creator.

4. Recognise that there is often more than one perspective of a historical event. [LO2 AS3]

By deciding on the reliability of the information. Reliability involves whether one can trust the sources, in terms of who created them and the purpose for which they were created. Identifying a stereotype involves recognising widely held but fixed or oversimplified (incorrect) ideas of what someone or something is like. Identifying subjectivity involves discovering the extent to which a source represents the particular view or circumstances of its author or creator.

5. Explain why there are different interpretations of historical events and peoples’ actions. [LO2 AS3]

By analysing and weighing up the conclusions reached, or opinions about, events or people in the past. The interpretations may be those made by different historians, textbook writers, journalists, actors or producers, for example, about the same things.

6. Participate in constructive and focused debate through the careful evaluation of historical evidence. [LO3 AS4]

By participating in debate about what happened (and how and why it happened). Debating involves being able to talk with others about the information from the sources, and also using the information to develop a point of view. It also involves developing formal debating skills.

7. Organise evidence to substantiate an argument, in order to create an original, coherent and balanced piece of historical writing. [LO1 AS3, LO3 AS3, LO3 AS 4]]

By using evidence to back up an argument in a systematic way. Usually this is done by writing an essay, but it may also be done by, for example, making or completing a table, designing a diagram or chart, or preparing a speech. Coherent writing has a narrative that follows a clear order and is organised in a logical way (for example, sequence, explanation, discussion). Original (independent) writing may contain a person’s own opinion or version of another writer’s opinion. It is balanced if its conclusion is not one-sided or subjective. It can also be done in a debate.

8. Engage critically with issues of heritage and public representations of the past, and conservation. [LO4]

By thinking about how the past is remembered and what a person or community or country chooses to remember about the past. It also concerns the way the events from the past are portrayed in museums and monuments, and in traditions. It includes the issue of whose past is remembered and whose past has been left unrecognised or, for example, how a monument or museum could be made more inclusive

ConceptsImportant concepts when teaching and studying the discipline of History:• Historical sources and evidence: History is not the past itself. It is the

interpretation and explanation of information from various sources. Evidence is created when sources are used to answer questions about the past.

• Multiperspectivity: There are many ways of looking at the same thing. These perspectives may be the result of different points of view of people in the past according to their position in society, the different ways in which historians have written about them, and the different ways in which people today see the actions and behaviour of people of the past.

• Cause and effect: This is the reasons for events and the results of them. The consequences of something drive future events and help explain human behaviour.

• Change and continuity: Over a period of time, it is possible to contrast what has changed and what has remained the same. Closely related contrasts that are used to teach history are ‘similarity and difference’, and ‘then and now’, which help to make sense of the past and the present.

• Time and chronology: History is studied and written in time sequence. It is important to be able to place events in the order in which they happened. Timelines are often used to develop this concept.

Creating the content framework

Organised from Grade 12 down to Grade 10 – and further, to GET.

Removed overlap with GET Senior Phase except for WW2 and apartheid South Africa.

Content overload addressed.

Weighting of topics

6 topics each in Grade 10 and Grade 12 and 5 topics in Grade 11.

In Grade 11 Nationalisms is considered to be the equivalent of 2 topics .

Overall Key question retained from NCS: How do we understand our world today?

Key question for each grade:Grade 10: How had the world been transformed by the late 19th century?Grade 11: How do the concepts imperialism, capitalism, communism, racism and nationalism define the century 1850 to 1950?Grade 12: What is the nature of the post-Second World War world?

Topic structureE.g.Topic title: European expansion and conquest during the 15th – 18th centuries

Topic key question: How did European expansion change the world?

Background and focus: explanation of the way in which this topic should be developed.

Role of women in history highlighted in the curriculum

Some content considerationsGrade12: Organised the content more logically. This was imperative given the overlap in the current Grade 12 exam. This meant South African history is not as disembodied as it was. Case studies for Africa and the Cold War were identified and will not be rotated. This was a response to the new content introduced each year by the exam panel. The Middle East was relocated to Grade 11 and placed within Nationalisms rather than the Cold War. Brought the Middle East in on its own terms. The events of 1989 and Globalisation.

Content considerationsGrade 11: Organised according to communism, capitalism, racism and

nationalism and apartheid in South Africa (1940s – 19660s).

Expanded the current nationalism in the NCS (African and Afrikaner) to include Middle East and Ghana.

Content considerationsGrade 10: Slavery as a theme and Industrial Revolution to Senior Phase.

Reduced the case studies in the introductory theme.

The topic which includes the ‘Mfecane’ is an example of consultation with universities on the latest research.

An example of the stages of writing and re-writing: The Middle East

April 2010

September 2010 (Draft for Public comment)

September 2010 (Draft for Public comment) Grade 11

November 2010

Final

An example of the inclusion of a topic previously not directly stated in the NCS, of the detail in which content was specified, and of how issues of race, gender and nationalism were dealt with: the South African War

South African War [ What was the nature of imperialism in the C19 and early C20?]

CAPS Assessment

NSC examination

Why the assessment changes?• The current format of the exam was not working.

• Wide consultation with teachers led to the revision.

• Bringing back the well-constructed descriptive/argumentative essay.

• Working with sources more constructively.

• The option for learners to choose their strengths in terms of essays and source-based questions.

Paper 1Topics

1 The Cold War

2 Independent Africa

3 Civil Society Protests 1950s-1970s: USA

Paper 2Topics

1 Civil Society Protests 1960s-1980s: South Africa

2 The coming of democracy in South Africa and coming to terms with the past.

3 The end of the Cold War and a new global world order: 1989 to present

Essay assessmentCandidates will be assessed on their ability to: demonstrate thorough knowledge and understanding of the

topic use relevant information to answer the question plan and structure an essay use evidence to support an argument develop and sustain an independent and well-balanced

argument write logically, coherently and chronologically.

Source-based assessmentCandidates will be assessed on their ability to:• demonstrate thorough knowledge and understanding of the

topic • extract information from sources• interpret information from sources• identify and compare different perspectives within sources and

between sources• explain the different perspectives within the sources within the

context of the period studied• draw conclusions about the reliability and usefulness of sources• synthesise information from a range of sources .

Format of the examThere are 2 question papers.

• Each question paper consists of the question paper and an addendum containing sources.

• Each paper has 6 questions: 3 essay questions and 3 source-based questions.

• Learners must answer 3 questions: 1 essay, 1 source-based and 1 other.

• Learners may answer two questions on the same topic.