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‘What is history?’ Africa and the excitement of sources with Year 7
Teaching History article
Many history departments choose to begin their Year 7 curriculum with an introduction to the nature of history and the processes in which historians engage as they develop, refine and substantiate claims about the past. In this article, Adbul Mohamud and Robin Whitburn report on an such an introductory unit, designed with a specific focus on the history...
‘What is history?’ Africa and the excitement of sources with Year 7
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Teaching History 175: Listening to Diverse Voices
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial (Read article)
03 HA Secondary news
04 HA update
08 Did the Bretons break? Planning increasingly complex ‘causal models’ at Key Stage 3 – Matthew Stanford (Read article)
16 From ‘Great Women’ to an inclusive curriculum: how should women’s history be included at Key Stage 3? – Susanna Boyd (Read...
Teaching History 175: Listening to Diverse Voices
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How can students' use of historical evidence be enhanced?
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
What role does knowledge play in the interpretation of documentary materials? How do history students use what they know? What kind of knowledge really ‘makes the difference' and which ways of using knowledge make the...
How can students' use of historical evidence be enhanced?
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Building and assessing historical knowledge on three scales
Teaching History article
The knowledge that ‘flavours' a claim: towards building and assessing historical knowledge on three scales
While marking some Year 11 essays, Kate Hammond found her interest caught by significant differences between one kind of strong analysis and another. Some scored high marks but were less convincing. The achievement in these...
Building and assessing historical knowledge on three scales
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An introduction to Teaching History
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
Teaching History is the UK’s leading professional journal for history teachers at secondary level. Published quarterly with a distribution of over 3,000, Teaching History also boasts a growing international readership. These include teachers, heads of department, trainees, and libraries.
Teaching History is free to HA Secondary Members – find out about Secondary membership
Access a...
An introduction to Teaching History
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Hidden in plain sight: the history of people with disabilities
Teaching History journal article
Recognising the duty placed on all teachers by the 2010 Equality Act to nurture the development of a society in which equality and human rights are deeply rooted, Helen Snelson and Ruth Lingard were prompted to ask whether their history curricula really reflected the diverse pasts of all people in...
Hidden in plain sight: the history of people with disabilities
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Polychronicon 177: The New Deal in American history
Teaching History feature
Over 50 years ago I read my first serious book on American history. I can still remember the excitement of reading William E. Leuchtenburg’s Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. His description of FDR and American politics in the 1930s seemed so much more colourful and dramatic than...
Polychronicon 177: The New Deal in American history
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Triumphs Show 172: The history classroom lending library
Teaching History feature: celebrating and sharing success
Tim Jenner and Jessica Angell share how the History Department Lending Library at Cambourne Village College began and developed, and the positive impact it has had on both students and staff.
Triumphs Show 172: The history classroom lending library
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Deepening post-16 students' historical engagement with the Holocaust
Teaching History article
Peter Morgan represents what is best about the reflective practitioner - an experienced teacher of some 15 years' standing, he continues to challenge himself and to seek ways to improve and develop his classroom practice. Deeply influenced by the pedagogy and resources that he encountered on the CPD of the Institute...
Deepening post-16 students' historical engagement with the Holocaust
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Community engagement in local history
Teaching History article
This article, by Lynda Abbott and Richard Grayson, offers a fascinating example of collaboration between school and university, focused on the development of a community archive.
The project - run as an extra-curricular activity - was originally inspired by a concern to preserve the personal stories of those whose lives...
Community engagement in local history
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Unnatural and essential: the nature of historical thinking
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Sam Wineburg's work, in particular his groundbreaking Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts (2001), has a great deal to teach us about the discipline of history, the nature of historical education, and the specific cognitive framework...
Unnatural and essential: the nature of historical thinking
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Active Historical Thinking
Teaching History article
‘Thinking Skills' have been much discussed in England since, at least, the revision of the National Curriculum in 2000 and have recently morphed, with the 2008 revisions to the curriculum, into ‘Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills'. Often, however, such ‘skills' are discussed in abstract and cross-curricular ways, outside the context...
Active Historical Thinking
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Creating confident historical readers at A-level
Teaching History article
How can we help pupils learn to read historically? Gary Howells explores this question by explaining how he builds reading challenges into the course of his pupils' post-16 studies and by describing some of the tasks that pupils are set and the principles that underpin them. Howells argues that over...
Creating confident historical readers at A-level
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Move Me On 169: Planning a local history enquiry
The problem page for history mentors
This feature of Teaching History is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an...
Move Me On 169: Planning a local history enquiry
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Identity in history: why it matters and must be addressed!
Teaching History journal article
Sophia Nzeribe Nascimento, a mixed-race teacher working in a diverse London school, set out to explore her students’ assumptions about who historians are. While her own ethnicity and gender may have convinced at least some of her students that history is not exclusively the preserve of old white men, she...
Identity in history: why it matters and must be addressed!
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Chatting about the sixties: historical reasoning in essay-writing
Teaching History article
An article about essay writing may not seem the most obvious choice for an issue of Teaching History devoted to creative thinking. Yet, as Christine Counsell so richly demonstrated in her work on analytical and discursive writing, the process of crafting an argument is a highly complex and creative challenge....
Chatting about the sixties: historical reasoning in essay-writing
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Teaching History 123: Constructing History
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
06 Asses, archers and assumptions: strategies for improving thinking skills in history in Years 9 to 13 – Arthur Chapman (Read article)
14 Triumphs Show: 'Source Specs': making sources fun - Rachael Povey (Read article)
16 Little Jack Horner and polite revolutionaries: putting the story back into history – Alf Wilkinson (Read...
Teaching History 123: Constructing History
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The Holy Grail? GCSE History that actually enhances historical understanding!
Teaching History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
Teaching History 109, Examining History Edition, launched a range of debates about the role and value of our public examinations in history, debates which have continued in these pages and in history teacher conferences (such...
The Holy Grail? GCSE History that actually enhances historical understanding!
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Triumphs Show 182: A public lecture series
Teaching History feature
The history we present to students, however rigorous and challenging, and however full of integrity in eflecting history as a discipline, is a shiny show of our best resources. Peeling back this curtain and allowing students to see the real world of academic history was a major motivation in inviting some...
Triumphs Show 182: A public lecture series
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Using historical discourse to find narrative coherence in the GCSE period study
Teaching History article
When planning a GCSE period study on the American West, Alex Ford wrestled with reconciling the content demands of the examination specifications with the need to provide his students with a memorable narrative. In this article, Ford shows how he drew on the latest academic scholarship to construct a rigorous,...
Using historical discourse to find narrative coherence in the GCSE period study
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Triumphs Show: Diversifying the curriculum at A-level
Teaching History feature
There is a wealth of literature arguing for the importance of accommodating a wide range of perspectives and experiences in school history curricula. Many have contended that it is crucial to include the stories of those traditionally omitted from historical records in order to teach history well. Others have emphasised...
Triumphs Show: Diversifying the curriculum at A-level
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... gender and sexuality
Teaching History feature
Although they overlap, gender and sexuality are each a distinctive field of historical research. Researching in these fields involves cross-disciplinary work and a range of media and methods. One of the greatest challenges is that of terminology: how to refer to the gender identity or sexuality of a subject in...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... gender and sexuality
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Teaching History 149: In Search of the Question
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
03 HA Secondary News
04 HA Update
08 Ed Podesta - Helping Year 7 put some flesh on Roman bones (Read article)
18 Diana Laffin - Marr: magpie or marsh harrier? The quest for the common characteristics of the genus ‘historian' with 16- to 19-year-olds (Read article)
26 Cunning...
Teaching History 149: In Search of the Question
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Transforming historical understanding through scripted drama
Teaching History article
An article on scripted drama might seem an unlikely choice for an edition devoted to getting students talking. Surely the point about a script is that the words used are chosen and prescribed by others. However, the examples presented here by Helen Snelson, Ruth Lingard and Kate Brennan demonstrate how...
Transforming historical understanding through scripted drama
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Cunning Plan 191: diving deep into ‘history from below’ with Year 8
Article
Can the ‘subaltern’ speak, Year 8s?
When the Indian scholar and literary theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak asked this question in 1988, she wasn’t asking Year 8s on a Monday morning. What she wanted to explore was whether those marginalised people written out of the archive – ‘the subaltern’ – could...
Cunning Plan 191: diving deep into ‘history from below’ with Year 8
