In the last edition of Teaching History Jayne Prior and Peter John presented an approach to extended writing that relied upon pupils’ earlier work.1 Pupil indignation was key. Furious at the blandness of some text presented to them, they used their own knowledge of colour, detail and drama to challenge and enrich the bland, descriptive text that had been presented to them as ‘history’. Richard Cunningham adopts a similar strategy but with a different justification and in the context of different (but perhaps related) objectives. Having exposed their assumptions about the relative value of ‘fact’ and ‘opinion’, he then goes on to let his Year 8 pupils develop and present some opinion of their own. Through a series of activities he helps pupils to change their view of mere ‘opinion’ and to understand processes of opinion formation. He uses their own thinking and writing to make them change their preconceptions. Full of shocks and surprises, this is the kind of teaching that ties in with aspects of pure ‘Thinking Skills’ work, notably the work of Adey and Shayer in leading pupils down a comfortable and familiar path only to shake them up with something that doesn’t quite fit their existing conceptions.2 Some deliberate new puzzle creates a bit of mental anguish. Richard’s piece links with that of Phil Smith’s in this edition, who also addresses the need for pupils to be motivated by the reality and relevance of the historical endeavour. Phil Smith focuses on the reality of the people in the past – bringing to life past actors revealed in a source; Richard Cunningham focuses on the reality of the historian, helping pupils to get a stronger grasp of what the process of doing history involves.