The Documentary Form in Historical Context
Sections of this Case Study
Details
Learning outcomes
It was intended that students’ use of the online environment on the documentary form would contribute to the following outcomes:
- an appreciation of the complexity of debates relating to the documentary form, 1929-1945;
- an ability to integrate film and textual sources to construct the contextual meaning of key films from the period;
- an ability to relate the contextual reading of film to broader historiographical debates.
Description
The following section evaluation of the case study sets out the historical ways of thinking and practising that this online environment was designed to foster and sketches in the context of the course within which it was embedded. As this section will establish in detail, a key aim in constructing this environment was to allow students to read films in conjunction with relevant primary and textual sources and to do so in an interactive fashion. Accordingly the film clips that students could view within the environment were juxtaposed a) with relevant primary textual sources concerning the films’ intent, reception, etc. and b) with secondary sources that pointed up historiographical debates around how these films can or should be interpreted. (Indeed this juxtaposition of different types of sources was only possible within an online environment.)
The design was alert to the difficulties that students may experience if an online environment has too diffuse a form and they are unclear concerning the routes and purposes to pursue in exploring and interpreting its resources. On the other hand, particularly in a final year course which was aiming to encourage students' personal interpretation of historical sources, it was important to avoid creating too rigid a structure that would inhibit the students from making their own connections between documents and taking ahead their own analyses. Accordingly, the environment was designed to have a clear structure but one which would not constrain students’ own exploration of its filmic and textual sources.
The environment was divided into three main sections, each of which centred around the work of a major documentary film-maker of the period and took ahead a specific set of themes and historiographical debates. Each of these sections provided the students with a few key questions to keep in mind as they explored its sources. These questions were meant both to support students’ engagement with these sources and to challenge their thinking. As the students moved from section one to section three of the environment, the questions increased in difficulty and in the breadth of the historiographical debates to which they referred.
In addition to the set of film and textual sources that were built into the environment, a considerable number of links out to other relevant online sources were provided. Indeed it was seen as important to allow students to have ready access out to a wide range of resources that would allow them to pursue personal interests in a particular film-maker, theme or debate.
Rather than being viewed as a 'bolt-on', supplementary activity to the course as a whole, the online environment on the documentary form was intended very much to take forward the content, purposes and historical practices that are central to the module. The questions students were asked to pursue in relation to these on-line sources were meant to assist them in preparing for related face-to-face seminars where the historiographical debates they were asked to consider featured prominently. (We will report later how students viewed the connections between the online environment and these seminars.) Questions addressed in the online environment were also pursued vigorously in the on-line discussions that were a feature of the course.
FSOL clips/film selected for the case study
I remember, I remember (1968) – (from Films of Scotland)
Spare Time – (Royal Mail Film Classics)
Britain Can Take It – (Royal Mail Film Classics)
Night Shift – (Imperial War Museum)
Software, viewers/plugins required
- Blackboard TM
- Course Genie
- Windows media player
- Internet explorer
Other materials
Various documentary sources.
Copyright and other permissions
No problems were encountered in relation to obtaining copyright permissions for the use of third party material: and standard ethical guidelines were observed in obtaining permissions from students and in the use of interview materials and their work.
