History of Magic Curriculum
An overview of what different years will study this year.

Fall 2012
N.E.W.T
Fall Term will focus on the historical interactions between wizards and muggle communities, including the following broad topics. The goal of this term will be to a) develop a fluency of historical events of encounters and their implications, a) gain an understanding of how Magical ethics have changed over time in this regard, b) analyze the Statute of Secrecy's history from that lens, b) ultimately with the goal of using this knowledge to inform personal contemporary engagement between muggles and Magical society. Students will practice good research skills and how to support arguments with textual evidence from both Magical and muggle primary sources.

• Overview of specific incidents involving interactions of wizards in muggle spaces, specifically those encounters where magic was practiced and muggles were unaware of the Magical community as we define it. What kinds of Magic folk did this? What kind of muggles did they engage with? What were their motivations? What was the magic used? What were the effects?
  
  • Likely coursework would be researching incidents and analysing them against a rubric of: the basic archetype of the encounter, Magical community's interpretation of events, and Muggle interpretation of events. Students are encouraged to consult Muggle primary sources for the latter.
• Overview of a more general relationship of muggles to the Magical community (as distinct from muggle magic that is distinct from our Magic, such as some religious beliefs, phenomenon that were later explained by the muggle scientific method and measurement of the physical, etc). Examinations of how muggle and magical communities are knit together in different cultures and different ears in history.
  
  • Likely coursework would be a comparative analysis of two cultures' muggle/Magic relations.
• Move into the focus of how specific incidents have been interpreted in muggle myth/legend. And how that, in turn, shaped Magical culture.
  
  • Again, coursework will be applying previous knowledge to case studies.
• Begin ethical examinations of such encounters.  What responsibilities does the Magical community have when engaging muggles in this way? How have our ethics changed over time? Why? What affect has this had on the nature of these encounters?
  
  • Finding historical articles and opinions about these ethics and analysing them.
• Applying all of this to the development of our Statute of Secrecy, and the historical and modern implications. Does the SoS reflect historical or modern ethics of muggle/Magical encounters?
  
  • Choose a historical change to the Statute of Secrecy and demonstrate why it was made using evidence from primary sources.

Fall 2012
First Years

Fall term will focus on basic history concepts, research skills, and an overview of British Wizarding history. The goal of this term is to a) develop a working knowledge of major Magical historical events in British history, a) understand the subjectivity of history and how history is written, and c) practice how to evaluate the reliability of sources. Students will summarize reading, write short essays, and offer opinions in class discussions.

Most of the coursework will be done in class together through concise exploratory projects, mini-presentations, and group trips to the library. The end of the term will culminate in a research paper, but the class will work bit by bit each step of the way.

• How is history done? The history of history. Why it's important to study the History of Magic. Who writes history? How can we know what history is true?
• Start out with activities to explore an overview of British Wizarding history through the ages through exploratory projects and mini-presentations.
• Begin research projects with a library visit, choose topics.
• Activity to learn to be skeptical of sources, how to know if a source is good, and learn to how to include opinion in research.
• Library trip to get books!
• And so on.
• The research process will be spread out and interspersed with lectures, lessons, and activities to just learn some cool history.

Fall 2012
Second Years

This year will take a more direct approach to the modern Wizarding history of Britain and Ireland. The fall term will cover pureblood extremism in the form of Tom Riddle and Death Eaters. The students will have ample access to contemporary newspaper articles, recordings of wireless programs, and Ministry archival materials. There will be guest speakers

Students will...
... work to construct a timeline of events over the course of the term and come up with definitions of concepts.
... compare/contrast Death Eaters from the 1970s, 1990s, and if they can identify any current purebloodist movements.
... analayse bias in the media
... conduct interviews with people who lived through these times