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History Mysteries: Innovative thinking skills activities for KS3
Get students enthusiastic about history
History Mysteries: Innovative thinking skills activities for KS3 is an exciting resource from Chris Kington Publishing that brings history lessons to life. Through mysteries students act as detectives, piecing together what happened in the past. This exciting way of learning helps students to empathise with historical characters and situations and enriches their understanding of past events. At the same time they practise the six personal, learning and thinking skills outlined in the KS3 curriculum: independent enquirers, creative thinkers, reflective learners, team workers, self managers, effective participants.
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"A particularly strong feature is the way the mysteries focus on individual people and their actions, motivations and experience - the sense of unravelling personal stories comes through very strongly - but then widen out from the individuals to broader issues. However this isn't simply presented as a set of resources to be implemented with minimal thinking - the introduction and the final chapter provide good contextual discussion of teaching and learning in History, the potential for professional development within a departmental and school context and the importance of taking these approaches and running with them yourself, developing your own variants and learning more from your own experience about how children learn."
Ian Dawson
Founder of Thinking History
Author and editor of over 80 books and CDs for schools
www.thinkinghistory.co.uk
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| Region | Weight | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 0-11kg | £6.50 | |
| UK | 11-20kg | £11.50 |
| 20kg + | £15.00 | |
| 0-11kg | £11.50 | |
| Europe | 11-20kg | £15.50 |
| 20kg + | £19.00 | |
| 0-11kg | £15.00 | |
| Rest of World | 11-20kg | £19.00 |
| 20kg + | £25.00 |
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Benefits
The activities in this book are a great way to get even the most reluctant students enthusiastic about history and enable students of all abilities to participate in learning and enjoy themselves in the process. They give all students the opportunity to extend and explore their thinking and develop their skills. Your students are encouraged to:
- think
- discuss
- empathise
- write
- analyse
- evaluate
- summarise
- argue a case
Summary of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
The introduction provides a background on thinking skills and mysteries as well as a matrix which shows the contents for each activity cross-referenced with subject, era, link to area of National Curriculum and any other cross-curricular links, so that readers can see at a glance what is covered where. Issues covered include:
- The development of thinking skills and how they are relevant to the KS3 curriculum
- What are mysteries? Why are they one of the key thinking skills strategies?
- Why mysteries lend themselves to history and how they fit with the curriculum
- Instructions on how to use mysteries in your classroom
- Challenges you might encounter and some top tips for dealing with them.
Chapter 2: Conflict and cooperation
This chapter focuses upon 20th Century conflict and cooperation:
- The First World War and the Second World War
Why didn’t Jimmy Potts volunteer for the army?
In investigating the evidence given to us about Charlie Potts and Jimmy Potts, your students will gradually put together facts from the First World War and the Second World War.
- The League of Nations and the United Nations
The League of Nations Vs The United Nations – which one was more effective?
By disseminating the evidence in the fact files provided, students can answer a list of questions in order to gain an insight into the history of The League of Nations and The United Nations.
Chapter 3: Civil rights
Chapter 3 looks at the history of human rights and how modern rights have been constructed by looking at:
- Civil rights in the USA
Why did Mrs Till allow a camera to be taken to her son’s funeral?
The tasks within this lesson require students to fill in profiles about the people surrounding Emmett Till and then plot the events of his murder into chronological order. The main clues DO NOT tell students that Emmett is an African American – the idea is that they work that out for themselves and therefore gain an understanding of civil rights history.
- Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
Why are there 82 bronze children in the old village of Lidice?
The mysteries within this lesson direct students to enquire about the bronze memorial in the old village of Lidice in the Czech Republic. This lesson helps students to piece together the happenings of The Holocaust and why certain events took place.
- Civil rights in Nazi occupied Europe
What happened to the Besser family?
The story that is put together from the facts given help students to understand how circumstances changed severely for the Besser family and why they changed. This will help them to understand how human rights can differ, depending on whose perspective you are viewing it from.
Chapter 4: Power and human rights
This chapter investigates the theme of power and how it affects the rights and lives of citizens:
- Medieval England under the feudal system
Who is the king of the castle and who is the dirty rascal?
In this lesson students investigate what had happened to John Cobbler and his family. This helps them to understand how the Medieval feudal system worked.
- The Roman Republic, Medieval England, Tsarist Russia, Nazi Germany and modern USA and their power systems
Who is the king of the castle and who is the dirty rascal?
After seeing the example of how a power system such as the Medieval feudal system worked, students embark on a game of ‘mastermind’ in order to understand about power and human rights in other countries under different regimes.
Chapter 5: Everyday life
This chapter looks at various people in different times: a house slave living in Rome in 70 AD, a Russian serf living in 1775, an Indian working for the British army in 1860, a British textiles worker in 1880 and a worker in a shoe factory in modern day Sierra Leone in order to understand histories and current circumstances of different people:
- Change and continuity in everyday life for different people
Who deserves to win one1 million pounds? – the audition
In this mystery activity students are asked to play the role of either a house slave living in Rome in 70 AD, a Russian serf living in 1775, an Indian working for the British army in 1860, a British textiles worker in 1880 or a worker in a shoe factory in modern day Sierra Leone. They audition in their role in order to convince the rest of the group that they deserve one million pounds the most. There is guidance on how to direct role plays to get the best out of them.
- Change and continuity in everyday life
Who deserves to win one million pounds? – the debate
The whole class constructs arguments to decide who is the most deserving of the one million pounds. This helps everyone to understand the plights of the different characters and argue about the merits or otherwise of different states in which they live.
Chapter 6: British Identity + Movement and Settlement in Britain
This chapter tackles the issues surrounding ‘Immigration’ and ‘Settlement’ in Britain. It is designed to get students to challenge their assumptions about immigrant families and the social make-up of the modern day United Kingdom by researching the cultural origins of five British families. The main focus is upon two families initially in the two mysteries, with three extra families added into the extension activity;
- The ‘Dolphin’ family – lived in Ireland and moved to North-East England
- The ‘Martin’ family – originated from Valencia in the 14th century, moved several times to cities across Europe, and ended up in London
- The ‘Shapiro’ family – a Russian Jewish family who moved to England to escape religious/cultural persecution in 1821
- The ‘Madingo’ family – originated from Jamaica in the 1600s, and then moved to England in 1700 (this is the family who have lived in Britain the longest)
- The ‘Fisher’ family – a ‘Palatine’ family who lived around the river Rhine area until 1709 when famine and economic hardship forced them to move to England
Chapter 7: Your CPD
This chapter focuses on your own professional development. It asks for you to be reflective about the process of teaching mysteries and how it impacts on your teaching style and consequently on the learning styles employed by your students. There is also guidance on how a teacher or a head of department might develop these ideas further.
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Customer Rating
A great resource
28 January 2011This is a highly useful resource that is excellent for strengthening students’ thinking skills whilst at the same time engaging their interest in real, historical events and problems by presenting them in a ‘mystery’ format. My entire history department has made extensive use of it – as Head of Humanities, I think it’s a real shame a resource like this doesn’t exist for other subjects!