Library Good Time Fun Time

So, this may come as a shock to some people, but I actually went out of my way to do school work. (see photograph- evidence!)



On Saturday, after purchasing Puppy Milk from Big W, Audrey and I went to Penrith city library to do some actual research for out History Projects.



Unfortunately, the Library didn't have many books related to Salem, but there was one book I really wanted to look at, Encyclopedia of Witch hunts in Europe and America by William E. Burns. It's even a reference book, so it can't be borrowed and it wasn't there! Which means that by some horrific twist of fate some one else may have been reading it. Clearly a popular topic amongst library goers.



Anyway, after resigning myself to the fact that I wouldn't actually get to read a book at the LIBRARY, I went over the Proposal task description which was useful for a variety of reasons:

1. Because it always helps to know what your assessments are actually about.

2. It really forced me to think about everything I needed to research, what I really wanted to know, and what was going to be useful for me to do not only for the proposal but in the long run of the project as well. I think it gave me the wake-up call I needed to get off my arse and actually start doing some work. This project won't do itself.



I really focused on the enquiry questions, so here is what I have done.

Describe the process you went through to arrive at your questions.
I actually came up with the idea to look at the Salem Witch Trials last year when both the Modern and Ancient History classes had to a personal interest project. I was suggesting ideas for my friend who does Modern history, and I said 'You should do something with the Salem Witch Trials- like the religious and socio-cultural issues at the time, or something.' Naturally my friend declined, but the idea always stuck with me, and when I heard about the history project in the Extension History course I knew I had the basis for my work.

At first I wanted to look at the forementioned topic-how did the religious etc. context of the time lead to the trials? I was also interested in why the Salem trials are so well known- what was it about them that make them more memorable than previous witch trials in Europe?

After we went through the readings and different historical schools for this course, it became apparent that my question needed to focus more on historiography and how history has been perceived differently over time.



Question: Analyse differing historical opinions on the causation of the Salem witch trials. How and why has it been interpreted differently?

In order to answer this question, I have made a list of subsidiary questions.

* Why is determining the causation of the Salem witch trials so difficult?
* What different approaches have been taken by historians in order to try and explain why the trials happened?
* Are they valid approaches and claims? Why/Why not?
* What do I believe?
* How do different approaches to history reflect both the context of the Historian and the ideology they have? (I want to briefly look at Post-modern theorist and French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser)

Is that enough questions? Too many?

And is there much more I need to do for part 2, or is a more intelligent version of this enough?