How Useful?

Emergency session!!

Have a section in the back of your folder for the 6 ES question types.

Why do we ask ‘How Useful’?

• What is the point of this question? – (Why are we bothering to do this?)

• How Useful are the following Sources as evidence to allow us to find out the truth to this question?

Is Eastenders a good T.V. programme?

Source A : From the Sun 2, April 2010

TV BIZ today asks the 2.4million-viewer question - how did Eastenders become a ratings flop?

Last Tuesday, BBC’s hard hitting cockney-shout-fest show had the worst audience in it’s 25 year history.

The BBC show picked up just 1.1 million viewers - the lowest figure since it began in 1985. And so far, Eastenders has already shed a whopping 15 per cent of viewers since last year's series.

It's terrible news for BBC chiefs and residents of

the square. It is meant to pull in viewers aged 16-34 - gold dust for advertisers and has tried hard to attract those audiences with stories about teenage pregnancy and gay relationships. So today we ask just what has happened to a soap that was once at the top of its game?

How useful is this source?

Source B

From the BBC entertainment website Email from jan24spottydude

Oh my god dont stop Enders. Its da bestest.

I luv Bianca - she’s so wicked - the best eva. Enders rulez.

go mad if its not on next yr…. innit.How useful is this source?

Content

• Explain what is in the source – what does it tell us about the issue?

• How is this useful to us?

LimitationsA. Identify the limitationCould be many or none - for Example:

• The source is only one eye-witness account

• The source is only from one mine in one area of Scotland and does not represent the whole of the country.

B. Answer the Question:So this makes it less useful as evidence

of….. (the issue in question)

Author?

• Who wrote it and why are they useful to us?

• If they are historians they should have read lots of Sources to come to their conclusion.

• If they were eyewitnesses they were present at the time of the event which is very useful.

• N.B. A Royal Commission Report is an official investigation to discover the truth. Would youyou lie to the KING or Queen?

Purpose

• Why did they write it?• Did they have an agenda?

• Could they be biased?• Were they paid to write it?

Exaggerated?

• Does the description take things too far?

• Why should we be careful of this?

• Top Tip : Cartoons are often exaggerated and are Satirical (intentionally mocking).

Date

• When was it written and why is this useful to us?

• Is it a Primary or Secondary – why is this important to us?

• “It was written at the time when coal production was increasing (or whatever the

issue in question is) and so this is useful as first-hand evidence”.

DO NOT simply state: “it was written at the time we are studying.”

Try this one:Source A was said in 1869 by the rather dapper Royal Comissioner David Bremner after his visit to Arniston Colliery in Midlothian.

The miners enter the pit between 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning. They are in constant danger of violent death or injury. The winding gear may give way and there are dangers of being suffocated by foul air or o being scorched to death by the ignition of fire damp (methane gas). In 1865 in Scotland 12,034,638 tons of coal were raised and 77 lives lost.

Q. How useful is source A for investigating working conditions in Scottish Coal mines in the nineteenth century?

• Content = mentions the dangers and the technologies used in the mines (winding gear)

• Limitation = only one mine in Midlothian so not representative of all Scottish mines

• Author = eyewitness to working conditions and part of Royal Commission – trustworthy.

• Purpose = to record details of a visit to a mine

• Exaggeration = matches detail of other reports we have. Royal report so likely to be truth

• Date = written in a period when new technology was being introduced into mines.

Now try another one..

• Collect a past paper• We study Contexts B, A and C (BBC

in past papers)• Find a How Useful question in one of

these contexts and write an answer to it.

• Make sure it is on a topic which you have studied!!!

• Get it checked by your teacher.

You have 10 minutes!

On a scale of 1 to 10..

How well do you understand‘How useful’ ES questions ?1 = I don’t understand!10 = stop telling me how to do this!