3.2 AS 91435 V1
Analyse an historical event or place of significance
to New Zealanders
5 credits
The Russian Revolution
Remember…
You have to show that you:
Understand how to analyse. This means you have
to communicate key historical ideas and support
them with evidence.
Use phrases such as:
• “…on the other hand…”
• “…this demonstrates/shows that…”
• “…compares…”
• “However…”
The standard:
Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence



Analyse an historical
event, or place, of
significance to New
Zealanders.
Analyse, in depth, an
historical event, or
place, of significance to
New Zealanders.
Comprehensively analyse
an historical event, or
place, of significance to
New Zealanders.
Explanatory notes:
• Analyse involves using historical evidence to
communicate key historical ideas with
supporting evidence and establishing the
significance of the historical event or place to
New Zealanders. Merely describing what
happened in an historical event is not by itself
an analysis
For Achievement.:
Analyse involves using historical evidence to
communicate key historical ideas with
supporting evidence and establishing the
significance of the historical event or place to
New Zealanders. Merely describing what
happened in an historical event is not by itself
an analysis
For Merit:
Analyse, in depth, involves explaining key
historical ideas using in-depth supporting
evidence.
For Excellence:
Comprehensively analyse involves presenting
sound understanding, well-considered
judgements of the evidence, and conclusions
from an historian’s perspective. The analysis is
presented through key historical ideas that are
supported by comprehensive evidence drawn
from primary and secondary sources.
For Achievement, Merit and
Excellence…
You should include:
Key historical ideas:
It is easiest to put a key idea at the beginning of each
paragraph (topic sentence) and then back it up with
supporting evidence such as dates, quotes, statistics,
names etc
Key Ideas…
• These are the statements that leave you needing
proof and further explanation such as –
• statistics
• visuals
• dates
• quotes
• graphs
• maps etc
For example-key idea…
The First Moroccan Crisis:
Germany’s naval programme of 1896-1900
spurred Britain to empower her own navy in
response, in order to protect her trade routes.
For example-key idea…
Passchendaele:
Passchendale has gone down in history as
one of the most futile battles of World
War One (1914-1918)
For example-key idea…
Stalin used totalitarianism to rule the
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
For example-key idea…
The Secret Police broke prisoners down by
intense interrogation.
For example-key idea…
The invasion of Parihaka on the 5th November
1881 by 1500 military and armed members of
the constabulary was the result of greed for the
Maori owned land and the search for power by
politicians and the settlers.
For example-key idea…
Jewish life and the place of Jews in Polish society
was rather different from what it was in
Western Europe.
Another key idea…
“Nationalism was an important motivating
force for the North Vietnamese during the
1960s.”
Another key idea…
“The British were keen to find ways to break
the Western Front deadlock.”
And the rest of the paragraph…
“The British were keen to find ways to break the
Western Front deadlock. Superior sea power
seemed to be the answer. The First Lord of the
Admiralty, Winston Churchill, suggested several
ways to use British naval resources. One of these
was an assault on the Dardanelles.”
Another key idea…
“Social class was an important factor in
Victorian England.”
Students…
Often write in narrative which has few key ideas.
An example of narrative is Wikipedia which is all
narrative.
Fail, fail, fail…
Narrative is not enough…
“This happened and then that
happened and then something else
happened…”
Blah, blah, blah…
Fail, fail, fail…
Moving your grade from Achieved to Excellence
will depend upon the depth of the supporting
evidence and how confident and convincing
your explanation of the historical key idea is.
Significance to New Zealanders:
This must be specific for this standard.
Requires 3-4 specific paragraphs at the end.
They must be good.
New Zealand content is not enough, students
must indicate the significance to New
Zealanders
Significance to New Zealanders…
Required for 3.2 at all levels of achievement.
• Significance may be determined by:
• the importance of the event to people alive at the time
• how deeply people’s lives were affected at the time
• how many lives were affected
• the length of time people’s lives were affected
• the extent to which the event continues to affect
society.
Good luck!