Course Syllabus, AT Historical Inquiry

Students wanted for hazardous journey.​ Hard work, no wages, lots of

writing. Work to be displayed publicly and subjected to enthusiastic
critique. Must be curious, troublesome, and prone to undertaking tasks
with little chance of success. Return to normal is doubtful.

AT Audit Objective​: Advanced Topic (AT) Courses at Singapore American School (SAS)
have been developed to provide more relevant learning options for our grade 11 and 12
students in order to ensure higher levels of engagement, greater focus on 21st Century
competencies, and better prepare students for their future aspirations. The SAS AT Audit
provides each course an opportunity to clearly articulate the objectives, expected learning
outcomes, culminating assessments, plagiarism policy and pacing guide for each unit. The
structure and guidelines of this syllabus have been created to align with college and
university expectations.

Course Title​: AT Historical Inquiry

Instructor(s) Details​:
Name: Matthew Hughes
Degrees: BA (History), MA (History/Asian Studies)
Pertinent Training: Formal training and instruction in IB and AP frameworks, PBL, and
Inquiry-based teaching models.

Course Overview​: History is short on answers, but it sure does offer a lot of interesting
questions. AT Historical Inquiry turns the historical process on its head, going backwards
through time to seek answers to enduring questions in the field. This course seeks curious,
adventurous, and passionate students, challenging them to read closely, think broadly, write
compellingly, and create beautiful historical works that help us better understand our world.
Students will develop their own rich body of historical knowledge and, using the toolkit of the
professional historian, design and pursue questions of purpose.

Course Description: ​This in-depth, focused history course fosters in students the skills that
professional historians use in their work. Students will begin by developing broad content
knowledge in several areas of study, including historiography, political geography and
periodization. From this base, students will engage in 4 additional historical inquiries,
becoming progressively more open and responsive to student choice and interest. Students
are expected to develop and nurture a passion for history throughout, and will designate an
area of specialization for their final inquiry. It is expected that students will produce
academic works, public products, and defend their conclusions and methodologies. A
semester 1 grade of A or better in World History/World Studies is required to select this
course in grade 10; a B or higher in a 10th or 11th grade regular social studies course, or a
C+ or higher in an AP social studies is required to select this course in grades 11 or 12.

Course Duration​: 2 Semesters Total Contact Hours​: 120

Course Objectives/Goals​:
Graduates of AT History will be able to…
● Identify and apply a variety of sources of varying origins, purposes, strengths, and
 limitations to illuminate enduring issues in the field.
● Analyze how contexts continually shape perspectives of people within these
circumstances.
● Use historical and historiographical methods to generate additional questions and
pursue further inquiry.
● Analyze change and continuity across historical eras.
● Make conclusions and present arguments integrating a wide range of viewpoints, and
refine claims based on strengths and limitations of available evidence.
● Generate rich, evocative questions to frame original research.
● Recommend courses of action that could enhance an understanding and/or benefit a
specific community.
● Assign meaning to their learning, and reflect on their learning process.

Expected Student Learning Outcomes​: ​(power standards or level 2 standards)

Skills (including DSLOs)​:
❏ Communication​: Communication is the ability to effectively exchange ideas and
information through oral, written, digital and creative expression on an interpersonal
and global level. ​(​Communication Rubric & Presentation Rubric​ link)
❏ Critical Thinking​: Critical thinking is the ability to access and analyze key information
to develop responses to complex problems and questions that may have no clear
answer. ​(​Critical Thinking Rubric​ & ​CCR aligned Argument Rubric​ links)
❏ Creativity and Innovation​: Creativity and Innovation are the ability to integrate and
combine ideas while following a passion or curiosity to develop a useful and novel
idea, process, or product. ​(​Creativity Rubric​ link)
❏ Collaboration​: Collaboration is the ability to work effectively towards a common goal
in the process of shared creation while optimizing group and individual contributions
within diverse teams. ​(C
​ ollaboration Rubric​ link)
❏ Cultural Competence​: Cultural Competence requires students to gain self awareness
of their personal worldview, as well as the worldview of others. It is the ability to
understand human diversity and interact effectively with others in a variety of
settings, applying skills that build positive interactions with all people. ​(Cultural
Competence rubric - in development)
Practices​:
❏ Structured Academic Controversy
❏ Shared Inquiry/Socratic Seminar
❏ Source Analysis (origin, purpose, value, limitation)
❏ Historiographic Analysis
❏ Writing
❏ Informative: Contextualization and comparison
❏ Argument: Continuity and change over time
❏ Historical Investigation

Skills Taught​: ​AT History Skills Standards

Content Covered:
❏ The Historian’s toolkit: Thinking skills and historiographical analysis
❏ The Asian values debate
❏ Modern Southeast Asian history and politics, with a focus on Singapore, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines
❏ The world from the pre-colonial era to post-industrial societies
❏ Student-selected content areas
AT Summative Assessments​:
Culminating Assessment:
❏ Inquiry 3 - December culminating assessment: Produce an in-depth, focused
historical inquiry on a sub-topic of their choice that reflects an enduring historical
issue or problem and provides perspective on our essential question (How is local
history global history?)
❏ Inquiry 5 - June culminating assessment: For the final assessment cycle, students
will develop a specialization and dive deep into a topic of their choice. They will
develop learning targets, refine inquiry questions, select and evaluate information,
address a specific issue, and design a public product effective at conveying their
expertise.

Major Unit Assessments:

❏ Inquiry 1: Socratic Seminar - The End of History (September)
❏ Does empirical truth exist?
❏ What kinds of historians do we want to be?
❏ Inquiry 2: Debate and historiographical review (November)
❏ Did Michael Fay get what he deserved?
❏ Are truths and values universal?
❏ Inquiry 4: Essay: Continuity and change over time (March)
❏ Student-selected inquiries from the colonial era

AT Plagiarism Policy​:
Academic dishonesty, or plagiarism, does not allow the teacher to clearly assess the
student’s learning. Any form of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated and may result in a
“No Credit” for that assignment. Academic dishonesty scores will calculate as 0 in the final
grade.

Plagiarism is the act of presenting another’s words and ideas as one’s own without crediting
the source. All writers are responsible for documenting the use of ideas and words that are
not their own.

Plagiarism includes more than the intentional misusing of reference sources. Students are
equally guilty of plagiarism when they allow their assignment to be copied and submitted as
the work of another. While an obvious form of plagiarism is copying a direct quotation
without providing quotation marks and crediting the source, a more subtle form of plagiarism
includes paraphrasing material or using an original idea that is not properly introduced,
rephrased, and documented.

Students can avoid plagiarism by acknowledging the source of materials, using quotation
marks, or revising all paraphrased material so that it is presented in one’s own style and
language.

AT History Syllabus - Pacing Guide​:

AT History Semester 1

Inquiry 1​:​ Craft

What kind of historians are we?
August to Overview: Curriculum Tags:
late Students will explore enduring questions in the field of
September historiography and debates within the discipline of writing AT History Power
history. Standards and
DSLO Tags
Essential Questions:
Who are the primary agents that shape historical change? Cultural
Are all truths equal? Is there one empirical truth? Competence,
Is History an art or a science? Critical thinking,
Should national histories build positive portraits/examples to Communication,
instil national pride and provide role models? Content
Can an objective history be written? Knowledge

Materials:
The Essential Historiography Reader (Hoefferle)
Assorted readings/excerpts (Herodotus, Thucydides, Marx,
Machiavelli, Said, Christian)
Article: “The End of History” (Lynne Cheney and her
contemporaries in debate. Gary Nash opposing)

Activities:
Reading: Critical evaluation of (and with) multiple historical
lenses
Discussion/Seminar
Source Analysis
Structured Academic Controversy
Reflection

Assessment:
Socratic Seminar/Shared Inquiry
● Formative: What good is History?
● Summative: “The End of History”
○ Does empirical truth exist?
○ What kind of historians do we want to be?
○ We will begin with Lynne Cheney’s
traditionalist rebuttal to the postmodernist view
of empirical truths, engage in some of the
surrounding texts/debates, and take a
perspective on the question.
● Reflection
○ On skills and development as a learner
○ On their perspective in relation to the
questions.

Inquiry 2​:​ Values

Did Michael Fay get what he deserved?

Late Overview:​ In this unit students will apply what they have Curriculum Tags:
September learned in Unit 1 to a contentious and complex international
to incident occurring in Singapore and involving a student at AT History Power
Mid-Novem Singapore American School in 1994 - the caning of Michael Standards and
ber Fay. DSLO Tags
 Students will be expected to evaluate stakeholder values and Cultural
perspectives, including the Asian Values debate, and view Competence,
resources through multiple lenses Critical thinking,
Communication,
Essential Questions: Content
Knowledge
Did Michael Fay get what he deserved?
● How do historians separate facts and opinion?
● Was the penalty to cane Michael Fay justified? Was
the US right to interfere?
● What can the ‘Asian Values’ debate tell us about the
challenges associated with applying western-style
values beyond the West?
● To what extent are truths and values universal?

Materials:
Various interviews and publications on/by Lee Kuan Yew
Essay: The Asian Values Debate (Subramaniam)
Straits Times articles covering the event
NY Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine
Official statements: Bill Clinton, LKY
Interviews, LKY (Fareed Zakharia ++)
Activities:
Reading
Discussion
Source analysis (origin, purpose, value, limitation)
Historiographical application (lenses and other tools)
Debate (Structured Academic Controversy)
Writing (see below)

Assessment:​ E ​ mbedded Performance Assessment 1

Formatives in this cycle include…
● Historiographical review of relevant sources
● Multiple accounts written through different
lenses/perspectives
● Debate
● Reflection

Inquiry 3​:​ Connection

How is local history global history?

November - Overview:​ For this guided inquiry, students will search out Curriculum Tags:
December the global roots of contemporary issues. Students will...
● Develop an in-depth understanding of historical AT History Power
themes and enduring issues, and identify ways these Standards and
themes can be seen locally. DSLO Tags
● Identify their interests, and develop their own
Creativity,
sub-questions to guide their research.
Cultural
● Find a story they are passionate about telling.
Competence,
● Make local-global connections visible through an Critical thinking,
historical investigation and exhibition of work to the Communication,
community. Content
Knowledge
Essential Questions:
 ● How is local history global history?
● What are enduring historical themes/issues?
● How can an understanding of Singapore’s modern
history connect to these global themes?
● How can we craft rich questions and subquestions to
guide an historical inquiry?

Materials:
Group Non-Fiction Texts: ​Blood and Silk. Power and conflict
in Southeast Asia​ (Michael Vatikiotis)
Crossroads: A popular history of Malaysia and Singapore
(Jim Baker)

Choice texts and supplemental essays:

Singapore: The Air Conditioned Nation​ (essays by Cherian
George)
This is what inequality looks like​ (Essays by Teo You Yenn,
Ethos books, SG)
Singapore Incomplete​ (Essays by Cherian George, Ethos
books, SG)

Activities:
Reading
Discussion
Source analysis (origin, purpose, value, limitation)
Historiographical application (lenses and other tools)
Socratic Seminar
Writing (see below)

Assessment:
Students will...
● Produce an in-depth, focused historical inquiry on a
topic of their choice that reflects an enduring historical
issue or problem and provides perspective on our
essential question (How is local history global
history?)
● Evaluate options for individual and/or collective action
to address a local, regional, or global problem related
to their issue.
● Present their research, investigation, and call to action
in a public presentation of their learning.
● Engage in structured reflection

AT History Semester 2

Inquiry 4​:​ Continuity and Change

How do we change, and in what ways do we stay the same?

January to Overview:​ The first inquiry of the second semester will be a Curriculum Tags:
March close examination of the colonial period, spanning the late
pre-colonial period to emergence of post-industrial societies. AT History Power
Students will be expected to continue developing Standards and
specializations with respect to places and time periods of DSLO Tags
 study.
Creativity,
● How did The West emerge to dominate the world... Cultural
○ ...during and prior to the colonial era? Competence,
○ ...as a result of industrialization? Critical thinking,
● Did nationalism change our world forever? Communication,
● Are we living through the decline of Western Content
Civilization? Knowledge
● In what ways have we changed since the colonial
period, and in what ways have we stayed the same?

Materials:
Student choice texts:
As students develop their area of specialization, they will
develop a reading repertoire of both nonfiction and fiction
texts relating to their region. They will be encouraged to
select foundational texts by contemporary local authors to aid
in their inquiry.

Group texts (selected readings):

Shooting an Elephant (George Orwell)
Waiting for the Barbarians (JM Coetzee)
The Great Divergence​ (The Economist)
The Great Divergence (Kenneth Pomeranz)
AP World History: An Essential Coursebook (Ethel Wood)
Civilization: The West and the Rest (Niall Ferguson)
Imagined Communities (Benedict Anderson)

Activities:
Reading groups
Discussion groups
Revision groups
Case studies
Socratic Seminar
Writing and refining (see below)

Assessment:
Working within their emerging areas of specialization,
students will address a pivotal historical event. They will use
this as a basis to assess continuity and change over time with
respect to that area and specific conditions before and after
the event. Students will produce and refine an essay that
demonstrates their understanding of the theme and of their
area of specialty.

Inquiry 5​:​ The ‘Moment of Archive’

Design and pursue a question of purpose

March to Overview:​ For the final assessment cycle, students will AT History Power
June develop a specialization and dive deep into a topic of their Standards and
choice. They will develop learning targets, refine inquiry DSLO Tags
questions, select and evaluate information, address a specific
issue, and design a public product effective at conveying their Collaboration,
expertise. Creativity,
Critical thinking,
Materials/Activities: Communication,
 With guidance and structure from the instructor, students will Content
be expected to… Knowledge
● Nurture and expand an area of specialization as an
historian,
● Set their own learning targets,
● identify and refine inquiry questions,
● Select information that is sufficient in terms of its
quantity, diversity, and relevance to inquiry questions,
● Identify a local, regional, or global problem related to
their issue, and
● Design, produce, and make public a focused
academic product.

Assessment:
1. Students will produce an in-depth, focused historical
inquiry on a topic of their choice, that reflects an
enduring historical issue or problem.
2. Students will present options for individual and/or
collective action to address a local, regional, or global
problem related to their issue.
3. Students will present their research, investigation, and
call to action in a public presentation of their learning.
4. Engage in structured reflection

The Semester 2 Culminating Assessment will be a free

historical inquiry outlined above. In addition, it will…
1. be student designed and publicly exhibited;
2. enhance current academic understanding of the topic;
3. have value that is clearly defined by and for the
individual;
4. have an external affect (an individual/group, a
community, a contribution to scholarship).
5. Include academic written work, an outreach piece
(affect), and a defense of methodology and
conclusions.

Appendix: Curriculum Requirements

AT History Sequenced Power Standards w/DSLO links

Desired Student Learning Outcomes (DSLOs) Tagging System​:

​ SLO
TAG: D
COM​ ​Communication​: Communication is the ability to effectively exchange ideas and information
through oral, written, digital and creative expression on an interpersonal and global level.
(​Communication Rubric & Presentation Rubric​ links)
CRT​ ​Critical Thinking:​ Critical thinking is the ability to access and analyze key information to
develop responses to complex problems and questions that may have no clear answer. (​Critical
Thinking Rubric​ & C​ CR aligned Argument Rubric​ links)
CRE​ ​Creativity and Innovation​: Creativity and Innovation are the ability to integrate and combine
ideas while following a passion or curiosity to develop a useful and novel idea, process, or
product. (​Creativity Rubric​ link)
COL​ C
​ ollaboration:​ Collaboration is the ability to work effectively towards a common goal in the
process of shared creation while optimizing group and individual contributions within diverse
 ​ ollaboration Rubric​ link)
teams. (C
CC​ ​Cultural Competence​: Cultural Competence requires students to gain self awareness of their
personal worldview, as well as the worldview of others. It is the ability to understand human
diversity and interact effectively with others in a variety of settings, applying skills that build
positive interactions with all people. (Cultural Competence rubric - in development)
Content Knowledge​: Content knowledge provides students with the fundamental knowledge and
skills necessary to succeed in college, career, and life. This builds a strong foundation from
which graduates can learn, organize, evaluate, apply, and create new information. *​ Content
Knowledge is course specific, and therefore, has been explicitly defined throughout
activities and assessment descriptions in this syllabus.