2021/2022

History and Culture of the British Isles

Code: 100217
ECTS Credits: 6

Degree Type Year Semester

2500245 English Studies FB 1 1

2501902 English and Catalan OB 2 A

2501907 English and Classics OB 2 A

2501910 English and Spanish OB 2 A

2501913 English and French OB 2 A

The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a
result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact Use of Languages

Name: Nicholas John Edwards Principal working language: english (eng)

Email: [email protected] Some groups entirely in English: Yes
Some groups entirely in Catalan: No
Some groups entirely in Spanish: No
External teachers

Christina Howes
Nicholas John Edwards

Prerequisites

There are no specific requirements for this subject BUT a level of C1 English is essential.

Students should be able to understand and follow theoretical discussions of historical and cultural texts.

They should also be able to interact with native speakers and express their ideas and opinions without effort.

Objectives and Contextualisation

The subject History and Culture of the British Isles provides an introduction to the main events and figures of
British and Irish history and culture.

The main purpose of this subject is to prepare students to understand British and Irish society, which will help
them to follow the remaining subjects in their degree.

After taking this subject students will be able to

Show that they have understood a variety of texts

Use the historical and cultural resources of any library

Express an informed critique of any cultural or historical text they may read.
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 Express an informed critique of any cultural or historical text they may read.

Competences

English Studies
Demonstrate they know a wide variety of texts in English language of any mean (oral, written,
audiovisual) and recognising implicit meanings.
Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in the English language.
Produce clear and well structured and detailed texts in English about complex topics, displaying a
correct use of the organisation, connection and cohesion of the text.
Rewrite and organize information and arguments coming from several sources in English and
presenting them in a coherent and summarised way.

English and Catalan

Demonstrate they know a wide variety of texts in English language of any mean (oral, written,
audiovisual) and recognising implicit meanings.
Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in the English language.
Produce clear and well structured and detailed texts in English about complex topics, displaying a
correct use of the organisation, connection and cohesion of the text.
Rewrite and organize information and arguments coming from several sources in English and
presenting them in a coherent and summarised way.

English and Classics

Demonstrate they know a wide variety of texts in English language of any mean (oral, written,
audiovisual) and recognising implicit meanings.
Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in the English language.
Produce clear and well structured and detailed texts in English about complex topics, displaying a
correct use of the organisation, connection and cohesion of the text.
Rewrite and organize information and arguments coming from several sources in English and
presenting them in a coherent and summarised way.

English and Spanish

Demonstrate they know a wide variety of texts in English language of any mean (oral, written,
audiovisual) and recognising implicit meanings.
Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in the English language.
Produce clear and well structured and detailed texts in English about complex topics, displaying a
correct use of the organisation, connection and cohesion of the text.
Rewrite and organize information and arguments coming from several sources in English and
presenting them in a coherent and summarised way.

English and French

Demonstrate they know a wide variety of texts in English language of any mean (oral, written,
audiovisual) and recognising implicit meanings.
Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in the English language.
Produce clear and well structured and detailed texts in English about complex topics, displaying a
correct use of the organisation, connection and cohesion of the text.
Rewrite and organize information and arguments coming from several sources in English and
presenting them in a coherent and summarised way.

Learning Outcomes

1. Analysing and interpreting texts in English in a basic level about the history of the British Isles.
2. Carrying out oral presentations in English about topics related to the history of the British Isles.
3. Demonstrating a basic comprehension of the diachronic and thematic evolution of the history of the
British Isles.
4. Demonstrating a basic comprehension of the nature and main features of the culture and civilization of
the British Isles.

5. Distinguishing the main ideas from the secondary ones and summarising the contents of texts in
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 5. Distinguishing the main ideas from the secondary ones and summarising the contents of texts in
English about the history of the British Isles.
6. Localise secondary academic sources in the library or on the Internet related to the history of the British
Isles.
7. Localising secondary academic sources in the library or on the Internet related to the history of the
British Isles.
8. Participate in face-to-face and virtual debates in English about topics related to contemporary English
literature.
9. Participating in face-to-face and virtual debates in English about topics related to the history of the
British Isles.
10. Summarise the content of primary and secondary sources about the history of the British Isles.
11. Summarising the content of primary and secondary sources about the history of the British Isles.
12. Write short argumentative essays or text comments in English on topics related to the history of the
British Isles.

Content

This course is an introduction to the main historical and cultural events of Britain and
Ireland from the early Celts to the present day, although the emphasis is on the modern
and contemporary era. Among the topics discussed are:
The country (people, geography, infrastructures, communications, cultural
practices)
The people (the early invasions, immigration, ethnic groups, identities)
The evolution of the institutions of the British Isles (Parliament, the Monarchy, the
Church)
The formation of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland)
Ireland (history, relations with England, its mythology)
Medieval Britain
Early Modern Britain
The Industrial Revolution
The Expansion of the British Empire
The 19th century and social reforms
The 20th century upto the end of World War II

Methodology

The teaching methodology and the evaluation proposed in the guide may undergo some modification subject
to the onsite teaching restrictions imposed by health authorities.

The teaching methodolgy is based on:

Guided activities (30%, 1.8 cr.)

Supervised activities (15%, 0.9 cr.)
Autonomous activities (50%, 3cr.)
Assessed activities (5%, 0.3 cr.)

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be
reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes

Type: Directed

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 Group seminars 7.5 0.3 2, 9

In class text reading and debate 8 0.32 11

Lectures 30 1.2 3, 4, 5

Type: Supervised

Participation in virtual debates 12 0.48 3, 4, 9

Tutorials 9 0.36 5

Type: Autonomous

Bibliography resources practice 15 0.6 7

Individual reading 30 1.2 1, 11

Individual study 12 0.48 3, 7

Assessment

Assessment for this course is based on the following:

Midterm exam (or exam 1) = 40%

Final exam (or exam 2) = 40%
Participation in forums, group project, attendance and participation = 20%

ASSESSMENT:

This subject follows the system of continuous assessment.

All the exercises are COMPULSORY.
All students are required to: study the compulsory book for this subject, watch the recommended films,
and contextualize the suggested texts for this course. Any indication that a student has not completed
his/her work in this respect will affect his/her assessment in a negative way.
An exam not taken by the student will count as a 0 in that part.
Students have the right to review their exercises (including reassessment) with their teacher in a
personal tutorial on the set dates, never after the next assessment activity has already been done.
Students lose this right if they fail to collect their exercise within the period announced by the teacher.
The minimum pass mark for the whole subject is 5.
The student's command of English will be taken into account when marking all exercises and for the
final mark, too. In fact, "English" will count 25% of all the exercises.

REVIEW

On carrying out each evaluation activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be
followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.

REASSESSMENT:

Re-assessment for this subject requires a content-synthesis test, for which the following conditions are
applicable

1. The student must previously have submitted a minimum of two-thirds of the course-assessment items,
that is the two written exams.
2. The student must previously have obtained an average overallgrade equal to or higher than 3.5.
3. The maximum grade than can be obtained through re-assessment is 5

Non-assessable

Students will obtain a "Not assessed/Not submitted" course grade unless they have submitted more than 40%
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Students will obtain a "Not assessed/Not submitted" course grade unless they have submitted more than 40%
of the assessment items.

VERY IMPORTANT: Plagiarism in any of the exercises will automatically lead to FAILING (0/10) the exercise,
which cannot be reassessed. If the student plagiarizes a second time, s/he will fail the course. PLAGIARISM
means copying a text (and this includes a single sentence) from unidentified sources and pretending it is part
of one's own production (THIS INCLUDES COPYING SENTENCES OR FRAGMENTS FROM THE
INTERNET, WHICH ARE INCLUDED WITHOUT ANY CHANGES TO THE TEXT THAT IS PRESENTED AS
ONE'S OWN) and it is a serious academic offence. Students must learn to respect others' intellectual property
and to always identify the sources they use. It is absolutely necessary for students to become entirely
responsible for the originality and authenticity of their texts.

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade
awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any
disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the
same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

PLEASE NOTE:

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made
available through the UAB's virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class
participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure
that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes

Attendance and participation in class, participation in online 20% 22.5 0.9 1, 3, 4, 5, 2, 7, 6, 9, 8,

debates 11, 10

Exam 1 40% 2 0.08 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 11

Exam 2 40% 2 0.08 1, 3, 4, 7, 12, 11

Bibliography

Obligatory textbook:

Grant, R.G. et al., History of Britain and Ireland. the Definitive Visual Guide. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2013.

Secondary reading:

Ackroyd, Peter A History of England - Volumes I-V, London: Pan, 2012-2019.

Black, Jeremy, A History of the British Isles, London: Palgrave, 2012. 3rd edition

Bogdanor, Vernon, Devolution in the United Kingdom, Oxford: OUP, 2001.

Dargie, Richard, A History of Britain. London: Arcturus, 2007

Duffy, Séan et al, Atlas of Irish History, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2000.

Ferguson, Niall, Empire. How Britain Made the Modern World, London: Penguin, 2004.

Gilbert, Martin, The Routledge Atlas of British History, 4th edition, London: Routledge, 2007.

Lacey, Robert, GreatTales from English History, London: Little, Brown, 2003.

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Lang, Sean, British History for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, 2004

Oakland, John, British Civilization , 7th edition, London: Routledge, 2010.

Mulholland, Marc, Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford UP, 2003.

Paseta,Senia, Modern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford Paperbacks,2003.

Strong, Roy, The Story of Britain, Pimlico, 1998.

Websites:

www.bbc.co.uk/history

http://www.islandguide.co.uk/history/nations1.htm

http://www.britishmuseum.org/

http://www.icons.org.uk/introduction

Documentaries

Simon Schama -A History of Britain (BBC)

Andrew Marr - The Making of Modern Britain (BBC)

Feargal Keane - The Story of Ireland (BBC)

Neil Oliver - A History of Scotland (BBC)

Huw Edwards - A History of Wales (BBC)

Software

No specific software will be used.