TASK. Students are to complete one of the following essay topics. Most of them ask you to present a point of view. Remember to support that with YOUR ideas that you have researched - not someone else's ideas.
Other topics are more about outlining what happened, but you still present them as 'being important', not just stating facts, and certainly not copied facts.
Use some notes from research, but do not copy and paste slabs from the Internet. I have some very good sources for these at school and could meet you there to show you.
Don't forget to read over my Essay Writing tips right here on the website (though there are many sources to access writing tips).
Choose ONE of the following topics and complete a 400-800 word essay. I am expecting these to be near the longer end for students that have shown strong skills in History this year.
ESSAY TOPICS
1. We often hear a lot about the men that fought in the wars, but many women had an active involvement too.
Choose a war and outline the many roles women played in that conflict.
2. War was also hard for the people at home. Outline how running a country, like Australia, was very difficult with all the soldiers off at war. Try to look at the larger picture of running the country, right down to the individual industries, like keeping farms and factories going.
3. Did the League of Nations get it right after WWI? Did Germany get what it deserved or did the League of Nations make mistakes and start a series of events that led to WWII?
4. Look carefully at three of the mandates from the Treaty of Versailles and carefully analyse their intentions and what impact they had on future events.
5. Russia was part of the Allied Nations during both World Wars. Investigate the events following WWII that led to Russia being at odds with the other Allied nations and what would eventually lead to the Cold War. Were Russia justified in their stance?
6. Civil war, revolutions and the actions of the people of a nation are what bring about real change to a nation, not foreign invaders.
Think about whether or not you agree or disagree with this statement.
Look at one of the wars and how internal conflicts in individual nations affected the overall result of that war. Or, study one particular nation that underwent a revolution during or around the time of the World Wars. Show how it was the actions of the people within that nation that brought about change.
7. Were the decisions of the United Nations following WWII better than those made by the League of Nations after WWI? Had the leaders learnt from past mistakes? Were oversights still made? Did their declarations lead to peace?
8. The Nazis' racist policies led to the Holocaust. Have we learnt any lessons from this genocide? What have the surviving Jewish population taught the world about hate?
(You will need to listen to some of the stories told by Jewish survivors for this question. Many are told on the virtual tour of the Holocaust Centre).
9. From great diversity and hardships, great people are made. Select 1-3 people as your case studies. Outline how their hardships during one of the World Wars or the Great Depression shaped them into the person they became. What can we learn rfom such people? These accounts might be of leaders, soldiers, nurses, or even Holocaust survivors. They might be real people you have known or famous historical figures. You can even look at the lives of very different people. There are many choices here.
10. Life between the World Wars was a strange time. It went from dealing with the aftermath of WWI and the Spanish Influenza into the heady times of the Roaring Twenties, then down again, into the Great Depression of the 1930s. Outline how life for the average person changed so rapidly during this eventful period.
11. As a result of its alliances, Australia has gone to war alongside its allies in the past. Has this been to the benefit of the country and what stance should the nation take going forward?