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Oracy and writing: Speaking, listening, discussion and debate
Primary History article
Editorial note: Writing is an outcome of its preparatory phase. In reviewing over fifty case-studies of writing and history for this edition of Primary History, it became clear that oracy is central to pupil development of written language, ideas and the formulation, planning, creation, drafting and revision of writing.
Introduction...
Oracy and writing: Speaking, listening, discussion and debate
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The Value of Biography in History
Article
7 April 2000: Historical Association, Norton Medlicott Medal Lecture. President, fellow members, ladies and gentlemen. I am deeply conscious that having just received the Norton Medlicott Medal; which means so much to me, that I must try to live up to the honour itself and the traditions of the recipients....
The Value of Biography in History
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The 1650s
Historian article
The 1630s in England began effectively in 1629 with the abrupt dismissal of Charles I’s third parliament and ended in 1640 at the first meeting of what would become the Long Parliament. Similarly we may start the 1650s with the regicide of January 1649 and finish with the surprising return...
The 1650s
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Triumphs Show 102: communicating historical difference to children with literacy problems
Teaching History feature
With the summer break stretching forth its welcome hand and the final lesson with my lowband Year 7 class looming, I wanted to ensure that the enthusiasm and dedication that this class had shown throughout the year was kept alive over the holiday period. We had been studying the Norman...
Triumphs Show 102: communicating historical difference to children with literacy problems
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Passive receivers or constructive readers?
Teaching History article
Rachel Foster reports here on research that she conducted into how students engage with academic texts. Unhappy with the usual range of texts that students encounter, often truncated and ‘simplified' in the name of accessibility, she designed a scheme of work which sought to find out how her students responded...
Passive receivers or constructive readers?
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Medieval 'Signs and Marvels'
Historian article
Medieval ‘Signs and Marvels': insights into medieval ideas about nature and the cosmic order.
Many aspects of life in the Middle Ages puzzle the modern reader but some are stranger than others. What can possibly explain an event reported from Orford Castle, in Suffolk? This is an amazing tale and...
Medieval 'Signs and Marvels'
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Essay writing for everyone: an investigation into different methods used to teach Year 9 to write an essay
Teaching History article
Essay writing is at the very heart of school history, yet despite the wide range of developments in this area over the past decade, pupils still struggle. Alex Scott and his department decided to investigate a variety of methods to see what methods worked in enabling pupils to construct essays...
Essay writing for everyone: an investigation into different methods used to teach Year 9 to write an essay
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Identifying the potential of history in teaching Citizenship at KS1 and KS2
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Following the publication of the QCA guide ‘Citizenship and PSHE at KS1 & 2’ (QCA:2000) which identified history as being a suitable vehicle for the teaching of the non-statutory citizenship framework in primary schools, and...
Identifying the potential of history in teaching Citizenship at KS1 and KS2
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Putting life into history: how pupils can use oral history to become critical historians
Teaching History article
However imaginative and enquiring classroom history may be, the history itself is usually constructed by a historian, a textbook author or a teacher. It is rare that pupils gain the opportunity to construct original histories of their own. Oral history can offer this opportunity. Yet as a methodology, oral history...
Putting life into history: how pupils can use oral history to become critical historians
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The Second World War
Classic Pamphlet
On 5 September 1939 the German Führer, Adolf Hitler, paid a surprise visit to the corps which was in the forefront of his army's ferocious assault upon Poland. As they passed the remains of a smashed Polish artillery regiment, the corps commander, General Guderian, astonished Hitler by telling him that...
The Second World War
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The Historian 107: The Price of Reform: The People's Budget and the Present Trauma
The magazine of the Historical Association
4 Editorial
5 The President's Column - Anne Curry
6 The price of reform: the people's budget and the present trauma - Hugh Gault (Read Article)
9 The Journey to Icarie and Réunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier - Donald J. Kagay (Read Article)
15 Arnold Wilkins:...
The Historian 107: The Price of Reform: The People's Budget and the Present Trauma
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Bruce! You're history.' The place of history in the Scottish curriculum
Teaching History article
History teachers in Scotland are feeling vulnerable. A curriculum review is leading to debates about history’s place in schools – will it or should it be a statutory part of Scotland’s curriculum for 11-14 year olds? Many of the concerns in Sam Henry’s article will ring true for teachers throughout...
Bruce! You're history.' The place of history in the Scottish curriculum
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Reading Sources Using Textbreaker
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Pages 8-9 detail how functional literacy's concept of genre resulted in the creation of Textbreaker to empower pupils to ‘read' all historical sources, but especially those previously thought too hard for them to tackle. Below is...
Reading Sources Using Textbreaker
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The New Imperialism
Classic Pamphlet
This Classic Pamphlet first published in 1970 comes with a new introduction written by the author M. E. Chamberlain.The New Imperialism - Introduction by M. E. Chamberlain Professor Emeritus at Swansea University. May 2010.When this pamphlet was first published imperialism was a hot political topic and battle raged between Marxist and...
The New Imperialism
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It's like they've gone up a year!' Gauging the impact of a history transition unit on teachers of primary and secondary
Teaching History article
Year 7 history teachers frequently bemoan the lack of historical learning in the primary sector. Pupils may be well versed in suffixes and similes, but their study of history can be limited. This group of history teachers decided that things could be different. Not only did they bring enquiry methods...
It's like they've gone up a year!' Gauging the impact of a history transition unit on teachers of primary and secondary
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Stalin, Propaganda, and Soviet Society during the Great Terror
Historian article
Sarah Davies explores the evidence that even in the most repressive phases of Stalin’s rule, there existed a flourishing ‘shadow culture’, a lively and efficient unofficial network of information and ideas. 'Today a man only talks freely with his wife — at night, with the blankets pulled over his head.’...
Stalin, Propaganda, and Soviet Society during the Great Terror
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Quixotically Generous...Economically Worthless'
Article
William Kenefick considers two views of the dockers and the dockland community in Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 'Quixotically generous and economically worthless’! But what does this mean? How does this curious descriptor help us understand the docker or the waterside community? Indeed, does it tell us...
Quixotically Generous...Economically Worthless'
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Varieties of Reformation
Classic Pamphlet
The most significant change to have occurred in our view of the Reformation in recent years is the growing acknowledgement of historians that it was no unitary phenomenon whose triumph was assured and inevitable. What we refer to in short-hand as ‘the' Reformation was a many-sided affair which began with...
Varieties of Reformation
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King John
Classic Pamphlet
In the opinion of Stubbs King John was totally, not even competently, bad... Stubbs was the predominant, but no the sole voice of his generation. J.R. Green was already claiming that John was ‘the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevins... In the rapidity and breadth of this political combination...
King John
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Building and assessing a frame of reference in the Netherlands
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Concerns about our ability to equip young people with a frame of reference that they can actually use to orient themselves in time are widespread. The challenges were extensively debated within the last issue of...
Building and assessing a frame of reference in the Netherlands
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Primary History 53: Living history
The primary education journal of the Historical Association
Living history - a primary history curriculum for the 21st century: Historical, Geographical and Social Understanding
03 Editorial
04 The Historical Association’s response to the Rose Review
05 In my view: Towards a new primary curriculum: Cambridge Primary Review Part 1, Past and Present, Part 2, The Future — An...
Primary History 53: Living history
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Western Dress and Ambivalence in the South Pacific
Article
Michael Sturma examines an aspect of the cultural impact of the West in the South Pacific. ‘States of undress, or the partially clad body, invite particularly ambivalent responses.’ One of the main preoccupation’s of early European visitors to the South Pacific was the nudity or partial nudity of the indigenous...
Western Dress and Ambivalence in the South Pacific
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Telling tales: Developing students' own thematic and synoptic understandings at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Ed Brooker is as concerned as the other authors within this edition that students should be able to see and make meaning out of ‘big pictures' of the past.
He is acutely aware, however, that...
Telling tales: Developing students' own thematic and synoptic understandings at Key Stage 3
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Building memory and meaning
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Sarah Gadd attempted to re-think her department's usual approach to the two-year Key Stage 3. Concerned that a thematic approach might not be securing the overview perspective it was designed to achieve, she decided instead...
Building memory and meaning
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Shaping macro-analysis from micro-history
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Many history teachers are inspired by the work of historians and want to share their stories and arguments with students in school. Hywel Jones found Malcolm Gaskill's Witchfinders ‘gripping and intriguing'.
He decided to use...
Shaping macro-analysis from micro-history