Topics

Choosing an event or a place

Covers AS91435

The three forms of event

A specific historical event — a discrete occurrence with a beginning and an end.
An historical development or movement — a change over time. Note this is permitted here, unlike AS91438, which requires a specific event in time.
A person's role in and contribution to a significant event or movement.
Biography alone is insufficient. The standard says the focus must be the historical person's role in, or contribution to, an historical event, or place.
The biography trap is structural, not a matter of intent. A submission organised chronologically by someone's life will read as a biography however much analysis is inserted, because chronology of a life is a narrative shape. Organise by the argument instead, and the person's actions become evidence for it.

The three forms of place

Where something significant happened — a site.
Where something significant is commemorated — a war memorial, a tomb.
Where something significant is contained — a cemetery, a museum, a marae.
Places are often the stronger choice for this standard, for three reasons:
- They generate primary evidence. A physical place has records of its establishment, photographs, an inscription, and often people who remember it.
- They have a built-in argument available. Why here, why then, and why commemorated in this way is arguable in a way that what happened is not.
- They make significance concrete. The extent to which the event continues to affect society is one of the five criteria, and a place that is maintained, visited or contested is direct evidence of continuing significance.

The format constraint most students never read

Note 3 of the standard: "The format of the presentation of key historical ideas must provide the opportunity to demonstrate the depth of analysis appropriate to Level 3."
This is a constraint on the form your submission takes, and it matters because schools offer varied formats — an essay, a report, a presentation, a documentary, a website.
The test is not which format is best but whether the chosen one has room for an argument.
- Can a claim be stated and then defended over several stages?
- Can evidence be attached to specific points?
- Can a counter-position be acknowledged and answered?
Formats that often fail this test: a poster, a timeline, an annotated map, a short slide deck. They can display information beautifully and have nowhere to argue.
If your school offers a visual or oral format, ask how the argument will be carried before you commit.

Significance to New Zealanders

The three permitted relationships, as elsewhere at Level 3:
- an historical event occurring in New Zealand
- an international event involving New Zealanders
- an international event influencing New Zealanders
The standard states explicitly: "to be of significance to New Zealanders, an event does not have to be located in New Zealand."
The five criteria for significance itself: importance to people at the time; how deeply lives were affected; how many; for how long; and the extent to which it continues to affect society.
You do not have to argue all five. Argue the ones your evidence supports, and say which you are relying on — that is a judgement, and judgements are what Excellence rewards.

Tips and Tricks

Tips and tricks

Prefer a place if your topic offers one. A memorial, a cemetery, a building or a marae supplies primary evidence that a broad event often does not, and it comes with an argument already available — why here, why then, and why in this form.

Check the format before you start. Ask whether your chosen format lets you state a claim, defend it in stages, attach evidence to specific points, and answer an objection. A poster cannot do the last two, and Note 3 makes that a problem with the format rather than with your effort.

If you chose a person, write your section headings before anything else. If they read as a life — early years, the campaign, later life — you are writing a biography. If they read as stages of an argument, you are meeting the standard.

Choose which significance criteria you are arguing, and say so. Trying to argue all five thinly is weaker than arguing two with evidence. Naming which ones you rely on, and why the others are less applicable, is itself a judgement.

Worked Example

Worked example

Note: the Riversdale Flats Drainage Scheme is an INVENTED case.

A student may submit on the scheme itself or on its 1994 memorial stone. Both qualify. Which is the better choice for AS91435, and why?

Answer:

Step 1 — check both against the standard's definitions.

The scheme is a specific historical event — permitted, and also a development over time, which this standard allows even though AS91438 would not.

The memorial is a place where something significant is commemorated — permitted, and one of the three named kinds.

Both are eligible. The choice is about which produces a better submission.

Step 2 — compare what evidence each generates.

The scheme draws on the minute book, contemporary newspapers, photographs and later accounts. Strong on primary evidence for the 1950s and heavily weighted toward the council's record, since the objectors left little.
The memorial draws on the stone's wording, the 1994 booklet, photographs, records of its commissioning, and later writing — plus everything about the scheme, because a memorial is unintelligible without the event it commemorates.
The memorial gives access to two periods rather than one, and each supplies its own primary evidence. That is a decisive practical advantage given the Excellence requirement for comprehensive evidence from both primary and secondary sources.

Step 3 — compare the arguments each makes available.

The scheme invites why did it go ahead and what did it change — both largely settled by the record, so an argument has to be found rather than being offered by the topic.
The memorial invites why was this erected, thirty-nine years later, and why does its wording emphasise what it does? These questions have no agreed answer, and both are deniable.
The memorial's argument also contains the scheme's material, since establishing why the commemoration took the form it did requires establishing what happened.

Step 4 — compare how each handles the significance requirement.

The scheme: significance must be argued from land area, displacement and economic effect. All are real; all invite assertion.
The memorial: the existence of the memorial is evidence for the extent to which the event continues to affect society, which is the fifth criterion. The topic supplies its own significance evidence, and arguing about what the memorial's wording shows is arguing about significance directly.

Step 5 — check the format constraint applies equally.

Both would fail as a poster. Why the wording emphasises displacement rather than works requires a claim, evidence, and an answer to the objection that a memorial reflects its committee rather than its district. Note 3 rules out any format without room for that sequence, regardless of topic.

Step 6 — note the one advantage the scheme retains.

If the student's research was strongest on the 1950s, the scheme lets them use it directly. Choosing a topic your evidence does not reach is worse than choosing a less elegant one you can evidence — and the memorial route requires 1994 material the student must actually have.

The memorial is the better choice where the evidence exists: it spans two periods, its central question has no agreed answer, and its own existence is evidence for the fifth significance criterion — so the topic supplies the argument instead of the student having to find one.