What my History Extension teacher always tells me: the key to a good HSX essay is
your own voice. HSX is highly philosophical, theoretical, and subjective. Therefore, being able to give your own opinion on the historians, historiographical issues and areas of debate is key, and differentiates the best responses from the others.
In terms of structure, a HSX essay in my experience isn't all that different from 2U history: Modern or, in your case, Ancient. However, make sure you are
quoting from the source/s provided throughout your essay. The sources are there to steer your essay, so make sure you use the most of them! Many will simply go for a "top and tail" approach- sprinkling it in your topic sentences and concluding sentences- but the most sophisticated responses will integrate them throughout the essay.
- Intro:
- A thesis that answers the question concisely and concretely. Nuance is OK: say the question is "Can history be objective?", you don't necessarily have to give a definitive "yes" or "no". Perhaps you might argue that history is objective insofar as there is a verifiable body of primary sources to support it, but less so in cases where there isn't (eg. ethnohistory)
- 3 sentences (ideally) that provide an overview of your 3 arguments. A temptation is always to go chronological (eg. Herodotus' and Thucydides' history is not objective, Ranke's is, postmodernists not), but to the marker this simply seems like you're giving a narrative overview of the history of historiography.
- Try to structure your arguments thematically. What unites these historians? Is it the usage of a particular type of source (eg. oral, written)? A particular philosophy to writing history? A method of construction? Let the "key questions" in the syllabus guide you.
- Try to name-drop a historian/ historical issue for each argument that you will then analyse in your body paras
- A linking sentence that goes over your thesis again
- Body paragraphs
- Basically a PEEL paragraph structure: although
- P, L should definitely quote from the sources provided, try to integrate it a couple of times throughout the rest of your para too
- 3 historians/ historical issues is ideal
- eg. returning to the example question "Can history be objective", you may have a paragraph that argues no, because of the vast spectrum of people who live and write history
- examples then may include: contrasting ways that Henry Reynolds + Keith Windschuttle perceive the Australian frontier wars, postmodern historians' methodology, Twitter as a forum for historical debate
- Don't feel that you have to fully dissect all 3 sources: take only what is relevant from them (eg. if only a historian's context is relevant to your argument, don't be pressured to dissect their methodology too)
- Conclusion
- A similar structure to your introduction, although here rather than give an overview of your 3 arguments, the main emphasis should be on re-hashing your thesis.
- Therefore, you may find it helpful, instead of having 3 distinct sentences, to have a longer sentence synthesising them in light of the thesis (eg. while those like Ranke constructs an objective history using written sources, key historical debates such as that over the Australian frontier wars affirm how in ethnohistory such objectivity is near impossible, etc)
To answer your question, criticising a historian's biases is definitely valid! it shows sophistication to be opinionated.
Hope this helps! extension is a really demanding subject imo too, but I think there's a method to the madness.
you got this!!
