For the love of Robin Hood - using movies in the classroom...

I estimate that I have seen Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves over 100 times in the last 15 years. And that's not including the times I watched it on VHS when it came out in the 1990s.  Its one of my favourites despite the dodgy 'British' accents, questionable storyline and many historical anachronisms, it has a great castle attack scene at the end that shows how the buildings were set up for defence.    In addition the tempo of the film is perfect for the attention span of your average Year 7 with alternate periods of high octane action and quieter, reflective scenes.  In all, its a nice way to round off teaching the Castles unit and giving me a few lessons relative peace.

(For the record I only like the UK release version that is cut shorter and doesn't have the rubbish about the Celts being bought off or the 'witch' using all the peep holes - the extended edition is actually pants!)

Anyway, I am a firm believer in using movies to illustrate historical things to our students. The big screen can help them to visualise a time period, a person or understand an event more clearly than written text or pictures alone.  However they must be used in conjunction with lessons on the limitations of drama as an historical source.  Students have to be aware that the prime purpose of a film is to entertain and not to educate.  This generally works well and is a great way to introduce the ideas of utility, accuracy and reliability to younger history classes!

But as I say, movies can illustrate some things in short hand that a written source or lecture would spend ages explaining.

Some of my personal favourites to teach with are:


Robin Hood (2010 Russell Crow version)

This is a different take on the traditional story and appropriates random bit of history for the sake of a gripping story.  For example Robin's father actually wrote the Magna Carta as a political manifesto... But it does have a very good siege example at the start of the film which I use when doing my 'Attack the Castle' lesson.  It's pretty accurate and illustrates methods used at the time.




Elizabeth (1998)

Again this one plays a bit fast and loose with the historical time line cramming several events from her lifetime into the earlier part of her reign.  I make my students aware of this and use th scene (that never happened) between Elizabeth I and Mary Tudor to analyse interpretation. This leads on marvellously to analysing contemporary portraits of Elizabeth and royal propaganda during the Tudor period.

(Though make sure you fast forward the sexy scene!  To many times I've forgotten and had to stand in front of the TV while fighting with the remote control in a hurry- and this is decidedly harder with interactive whiteboards these days!)


Roots (1977)

A wonderful series that inspired a generation.  Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alex Haley it follows the life of Kunte Kinte from his home in Africa to his being stolen and transported as a slave to the colonised USA and his decedents. The series does not shy away from any aspect of the horrors of what happened and can be graphic.   It brings the massive and horrendous story of slavery back to the experience of individuals that the young people can relate with and despite being a tv series somehow makes it less abstract and more real.  Using Roots to illustrate what my classes have been learning in lesson works particularly well for me;  completing an evidence DBQ activity and then watching  the corresponding part of or whole episode.


Oliver Twist (1948)

The the original 1948 David Lean version.  This film has worked for me for both History and English, providing context when studying the poor law and crime as well as 19th century literature.   Although there have been several adaptions with wonderful production values this  is still my favourite for the classroom.  Somehow the black and white atmospheric cinematography cuts through to the heart of the story as it was made for a less sophisticated audience and there is less to distract. When the lightning strikes and the workhouse is illuminate for the first time, you know its a terrible place without having to know all the history behind it.  There is somehow less to decipher and for a generation not brought up on black and white films it actually offers them something different!

The Pianist (2002)

A triumph of humanising a dehumanised period of our history.    Knowing that it is based on a true story from the beginning grabs the attention.  This film is set in Warsaw from just before the Nazi invasion in 1939 to its liberation by the Red Army, following the experience of Wladyslaw Szpilman and his fight for survival as a Jewish man in the Warsaw Ghetto. It doesn't shy away from the absolute horror of the Holocaust and therefore you need to know your students and how they may be affected by watching it.  The British age rating is 15 so I only use this film with GCSE students.  I show this film in its entirety over two lessons and the students are engrossed, disgusted and outraged.  There are gasps of horror, shouting at the screen and tears.

Hitler - The Rise of Evil (2003)

This is a long one to show in its entirety - I have only managed that once- but for key parts of the Nazi's rise to power in Germany it has been fantastic.  As its a miniseries the writers have been able to go into detail on things like the Munich Putsch AND the subsequent trials. It has given my students a more comprehensive of the charisma of Hitler at that time.  It really helps with understanding chronology too.






All quiet on the Western Front

I am a firm believer that we should look at the experience of both Allied and axis soldiers during the First World War.  On field trips to the battlefields of Flanders we always visit allied and German cemeteries as much to pay respects as to compare the different feel and purpose of the spaces.  The film All Quiet on the Western Front shows how the soldiers on both sides had a lot in common and in a curriculum that can sometimes focus on winners and losers, its important to remember that they were all people.

Remember you can  choose which version you show based on your students reading ability and attention span - subtitles aren't for everyone!




And finally, for a laugh, recommended by my history movies club kids - Bill - the life of William Shakespeare as told by the Horrible Histories crew!  I wasn't expecting much when we sat down to watch this one film club lunchtime but I loved it.  Full of jokes and a smattering of history I would recommend this tale of Shakespeare before he was famous to any age!

All of these are shown over a period of several lessons.  All have massive historical flaws, not least condensed time lines, characters created or erased from history and in some cases inaccurate costume and accents.  But overall I believe the benefits outweigh the disadvantages when we prepare our students to take some aspects with a pinch of salt.

I hope my random musings on movies has been of interest and maybe even some use.  After all, Bryan Adams said it best for 13 weeks in the charts "Everything I do, I do it for you"!

Does music have a place in the classroom?

Just a quick one...

Today I had a conversation with another teacher whom I respect and they stated that they never have music on in the classroom.  Partly because the SLT don't like it and partly because they just don't think it has a place in a Maths lesson.

It got me thinking.  I really enjoy a little bit of music in the classroom. Granted I am a history and social studies teacher so maybe its a bit different, but I think it can enhance the learning environment.

Some ways I have used music myself:

• Have it on and turn it off to get attention - Years ago I attended an inset by a member of SLT in my old school. This was the one thing I took away from it that actually worked.
• For behaviour management - I've often said 'If I can't hear the music, then you're too loud' and on the whole it works. It gives the students something to gauge their volume against. 
• As a reward - the kids can choose an (appropriate) station in return for some great work or action.
• To set the scene - I like to have on a bit of music from the period we are studying when students enter the room.  (I enjoyed teaching the roaring '20s - not so sure they did...)
• To calm the classroom down - Classical music is great for this in my experience. The teenagers complain bitterly but I point out its my classroom and my choice and once they forget about it the chatting reduces and the concentration level goes up.  
• Providing new experiences  - There's something to be said for introducing new types of music to young people that they generally wouldn't be exposed to in everyday life.  
• For enjoyment - Plain and simple,  its nice to have a hum along with a good tune.  It can motivate even me!

All this being said, we do have to be mindful of the cohort in front of us at any one time.  I have had some students say they can't concentrate with any music in the background.  Those young people with sensory difficulties should be taken into account and this always comes first.  

But on the whole I like it.

What do you think?  Is there a place for it in some or any classes?

Top 5 Student-friendly Jack the Ripper Websites.

Wanted poster 1888.

If your students are anything like my high-schoolers they're probably overly interested in all things gory.  So often mine become obsessed with conspiracy theories and in particular, the 'Jack the Ripper' murders in Whitechapel in 1888.  These crimes were so horrific that they fascinated and scared the population at the time and even heralded the growth of the tabloid press as the public pushed for more information.  The first serial killer he was not, but the first widely reported on serial killer - yes.

Is it therefore any wonder that our students want to find out more when the crimes have come such a large part of our cultural history? 

There is a great deal about the murders on the world wide web, unfortunately much of it is apocryphal and even more is too gory for our kids impressionable minds.  However as a history teacher I have had to teach what happened in Whitechapel in 1888 as a coursework unit to 14 year-olds and trying to keep off the gruesome details was hard. I did find a way though; focusing on why people were interested in the crimes at the time, why the police were unable to catch the killer and the extensive press coverage was an interesting way into the story and also allowed links to present day. 

But in the end you have to be able to explain what actually happened without freaking students out with the gore or worse still, desensitising them to the horror of what was done to the victims.  If you're setting up a web quest the last thing you want children to do is stumble (usually very quickly!) upon an autopsy photograph of Long Lizzy or the scene of Mary Kelly's murder.

Therefore I've trawled the internet to find the most student friendly Jack the Ripper websites that are also factually accurate.  This has been no mean feat so I wanted to share the results with you!



1. https://www.activehistory.co.uk/Miscellaneous/free_stuff/jack/LifeinWhitechapel.ppt 


The wonderful Russel Tarr's activehistory.co.uk set up in 1998 has some wonderful resources on Jack the Ripper.  A few of them require a log in or payment but many are free. Not least this PowerPoint presentation on Life in Whitechapel in 1888.  Made by another teacher this uses resources from Tarr's site.  It gives a nicely informative background to the conditions in the East End of London in the Victorian Era. And best of all its freely downloadable!





2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/ripper_jack_the.shtml

 

This BBC page gives a very brief, easy to read overview of  some key aspects of the case, including the graffiti and possible suspects.  The BBC history site is renowned for accuracy and generally avoids sensationalism. 





3. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/education/jacktheripper.pdf 

I absolutely love the National Archive in Kew.  Many a happy hour did I spend there during my History degree rooting through the collections on 19th century London.  Now you can do the same from wherever you are in the world.  (The internet is amazing!)  


Our students can now access the original Jack the Ripper materials online including the 'Dear Boss' Letter and the police responses.  This link takes you to the resources used for a  workshop they held on the police methods in the case.  The materials and activities are included and can be used by your classes with very little prep.  They can dissect the original evidence individually or in groups.  A accurate and informative website.

4.  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jack-the-Ripper 

The world renowned Encyclopaedia Britannica no longer needs to take up three shelves in your book unit.  Nowadays the internet version has all that you might need at the touch of a button.   This page has some brief details on the the murders, their context and various theories.  The best part of this page is the links to further information particularly on London and the East End. 

5.  https://www.jack-the-ripper.org/suspects.htm 

This one is slightly more risky in terms of your students finding some of the more gruesome images. But I've included it as it has some very useful and reliable information.   It may be best for you to use while planning your lessons for this reason.  This particular page covers what the police focused on when looking for suspects.  The page then goes on to list the main suspects with individual headings and pictures.    

The 'Jack the Ripper 1888' historical resource site is written and maintained by London author, historian, broadcaster and tour guide Richard Jones. He knows his stuff and is worth a look.  If you can keep your younglings off the more gruesome images its a useful site for them too.

Though this list isn't exhaustive I hope it's a starting point for you if you need one or adds to your repertoire! 

Below are some resources I love to use when teaching Jack the Ripper and Victorian London.  Take look, maybe you can use them too?

Victorianopoly - 

A play on Monopoly, history style.  This free game is a nice way to engage your students with context for the crimes.  Available for FREE at Schoolhistory.co.uk.

History Mystery - Who was Jack the Ripper?

In this lesson they will compare and evaluate 12 possible suspects before deciding on the most likely guilty person. The lesson works as a knockout tournament, comparing two suspects at a time. 

It is great for developing higher order thinking skills especially when they have to tease out the strengths and weaknesses of each suspect. It also provides me with some fabulous display ideas using the students work!

How did the press increase fascination with Jack the Ripper?


This worksheet lesson examines sensationalisation in the press at the time and compares the techniques used with more recent press examples.

Putting it all on show!

Harry Potter: This is one way to inspire your classes.

Classroom displays are great things. They brighten up the room and can cheer up the most miserable of walls, but the best ones are useful.  Ever since my NQT year many moons ago when I was given my first classroom all to myself I have tried use the walls, windows and, in one very interesting year, the ceiling...

I have nothing but admiration for the 'Pinterest-Ready' teachers, theming their classes every year. This teacher's dedication to his Harry Potter plan was astounding!

Being inspired by a Beijing history classroom...

It would be wonderful to decorate my history room like a Medieval castle or Tudor banqueting hall. But sadly I don't have the time or the cash to splash on such things. (the UK £1 shops have nothing on Dollar Tree unfortunately.)

Also, I fear it could actually limit students' learning. If they are studying the Vietnam War and its impact on the USA, being in a room decorated as a Victorian Work House will be of not benefit to them.  (Unless of course they catch the work ethic!)

Therefore I prefer useful, subject specific display material that my students can use to support their understanding of the topics we are working on.   Below are some of the things you will find in any classroom I'm responsible for:

STUDENTS' WORK

Mind-mapping revision that will
be put up on display as a tool.

One of the most powerful tools in my teaching arsenal is displaying my student's work.  It can take a variety of forms.   On my desk is a giant clothes peg and clipboard.  I use this to display any piece of work that I feel deserves recognition. It can be classwork or home work, but it exemplifies the effort of the child.  It doesn't have to be particularly neat or beautiful to earn 'Work of the Week' status either.  The younger years love this as they often have project based homework from history, but the slightly more cynical upper school kids have been known to a smile when I have selected their work for display. Everyone likes (quality) praise and moody teenagers are no different in my experience, even if it is only shown on the inside...


Another way I use students' work is with model answers.  Our curriculum repeats each year and having things on the walls that they can use to work out what they need to produce has proved valuable to my kids.  I'm not suggesting having something they can copy word for word, but examples of how others have made notes on a given topic or how to mind map are useful to those who have never done it before.  'What A Good One Looks Like' (or WAGOLL) is part of most curriculums for a reason.

INSTRUCTIONAL DISPLAYS:

In history one of the things we spend the most time on is how to write up your ideas.   History is a subject that often requires a high level of literacy to access the highest grades and so developing this is time well spent.  One of the most successful instructional displays I have in my classes is my P.E.E.L. display.    Its actually a large version of my P.E.E.L. literacy mats. The students can use them individually or take a quick look at the wall for connectives and frame their writing.    It was so widely used by my students that we built the department KS3 assessment attainment descriptors to match it. They are skills-based descriptors;

Assessment attainment criteria

• EMERGING = IDENTIFY = POINT
• DEVELOPING = DESCRIBE = EVIDENCE
• SECURING=EXPLAIN  = EXPLANTION
• MASTERING = EVALUATE = LINK

WORD WALLS:

A simple word wall

Learn - Remember - Revise - Use.

I think word walls are brilliant.  They have proven their use to my classes though I admit I never knew what they were called when I started out!  Simple ones like the one here contain the key words that should appear in answers on the topic of Votes for Women.  It's in a giant V for VOTEs and in the Suffragettes colours of purple and green.  Each topic on the GCSE wall had its own key word letter - I for Indian Independence, A for the America unit and a big pink G for Nazi Germany.  These visual queues helped the children to recall the words in the exam and improve their answers in general.

Examples from a more detailed Word Wall

I've also made more detailed word walls. These contain photos and descriptions that can also be used as flashcards or as pointers in a living graph.








In the end, displays are only as good as they are useful and engaging. My students tell me that they use the ones in my rooms and that they are helpful.  I see evidence of this when I ask questions and they refer to the information on the walls or when students are peer and self assessing and use the language on the grade descriptors.   Just remember to cover everything up when there is an assessment -  it takes ages!

Let me know your best display ideas in the comments below!

'Who lived in a house like this?'

...David, its over to you.

I love local history. There I said it.  I say this to teaching colleagues and they look at me askance like I've just said I was into collecting oddly shaped rocks.   (Unless they're a geography teacher, they usually get it.) It may get me some funny looks in the staff room but I think finding out about the place in which you live and work is fascinating and offers an intriguing insight into how the community came to be what it is.

Once again Local History is back on our television screens.  BBC has been showing David Olusoga’s ‘A House Through Time’ which traces the history of one house in Liverpool and it’s surrounding area from when it was built to present day.  When I turned on the tv I was reminded of the local history lessons I taught a few years ago and wrote an article on.

I taught in a north London comprehensive school for many years and every year we would teach the Year 7 students about the history of the area.  It is an ethnically and socially diverse community and often the students we were teaching had only recently moved to the area or even the country.  Learning about the area helped these kids in particular to find their place and realise that it had always been a pretty transient population.

Wood Green had been a hamlet for hundreds of years and was mentioned in the Domesday book.  It had a couple of farms and a pub.  Farmers would drive their cattle through the village on the way to market in London.  Nothing much changed there until the 19th century and the coming of the railways.  It became an attractive place for white collar workers to live and commute in to city.    By the early 20th century the farms had gone and had been replaced with rows and rows of terraced housing.  During the war, the town suffered some bomb damage and now the terraced avenues are flecked with small 1960s blocks as replacement.  In the 1980s a massive complex was built and it became a hub for north Londoners out to do their shopping on a Saturday.

Wood Green has a great selection of housing stock to look at and study.  A few years ago we chose

The road we selected for our study. 

a street that represented this change over time.  It was two minutes away from our school gates so we could walk there with a trail of students and it had houses dating back to the 1850s right up to the 1980s.  The class was split into groups of 4 and each group was allocated a house.  The aim was to find out all they could about its past residents and how things had changed for the occupants over time.

The students LOVED it!  We provided some scaffolding and the historical materials and they were away. Using the original censuses they discovered the names and occupations of their residents, with photographs they imagined what the people may have looked like.  When visiting the street the children compared architecture and style of the buildings. In the classroom they used map layering to see how the area changed through the period and they were able to make judgements on whether they thought these changes were a good or bad thing.  Over several lessons the groups built up a picture of who lived there.  When the groups learned to decipher the copperplate writing on the oldest census reports they felt like explorers decoding a new language.  The sense of achievement in the class was palpable.

Half of a living graph. 

In the end, each group produced a house of sugar paper filled with their findings. We put them all together on the wall to build our own street and everyone gave verbal feedback on their displays. One of the most interesting things the students did was to use their imaginations to decide how happy their house would have been at different points in its history.  This was designed to get them thinking about the bigger picture of changes over time and the impact the may have had.  The children really put a lot of thought into this, evaluating how a house might feel to be empty or full or to have competition for entertainment outside the home for example. Their ideas were explained on a living graph and threw up some fascinating insights.

 





They had learned so much and been so engaged in the whole process.  Importantly they learned in a practical way that history is not the complete task, rather it’s a recreation of it from the remnants of what we have left.  The children realised that they could never know everything about their house and it’s previous tenants but by making reasoned inferences based on the evidence they could produce an idea that would stand up to scrutiny.

How to do it:

1. Make friends with your local history archivist.  They are usually found at your local library or, if you have one, the local history museum.  In my experience these people are only too happy to help.  Our local museum archivist helped me to gather the maps, photos and census materials and then rooted around for anything else she thought I could use including telephone directories, advertising pamphlets and posters! She was invaluable and pleased that local children were learning about their past.

2. Gather as many resources as you can lay your hands on.  You’ll be surprised how they can come in useful. Also generic history books to help your students put their house in a wider context.

3. Use Google Maps to scope out the potential streets in your area before you start.  The street view function is great for seeing what the area lookalike on the ground.  Google Maps is also a fabulous tool if you are unable to physically take your class out to the street.   I used it as an introduction before our visit to familiarise the children with the place and  task at hand.

4. You might consider signing up to an online ancestry website.  I did this primarily to save me more trips to the archive but it was also great for easy cross referencing and transcribed versions of original documents. I was able to see where the residents had gone to with the click of a button. I used  Find My Past and the site was easy to navigate and had all the information I needed at the touch of a button.

If you would like an in-depth explanation of how the lessons were structured and our findings you can read the full article here in Teaching History magazine.



I hope you decide to investigate the history on your doorstep and if you do, please let me know how you get on!

And a happy new year!

UPDATE- Looks like I didn’t press Publish when I wrote  this in JANUARY 2017!  But it’s still valid and the sentiment is the same so here you are!


Morning!  I hope you are all enjoying the break as much as I am.  I could technically sleep past 6am for a whole fortnight with no school to go to. But that would mean convincing my unconscious self that its actually ok to get up at 8am and that I can turn off my automatic alarm. With things I obviously failed to do last night. So here I am awake at 6.30am with a coffee and a walked dog.

Thoughts have been turning to the next term. (Yes, the geek inside me never stops.)  I don't like the Sept-Dec term. It feels like Christmas is one giant 'hump-day' in the middle of the year, an annual Wednesday to get past.  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas!  I love all the fun things, the gift-giving, the food, the school activities and carol concerts.  I just hate the way that over here in the UK it gets darker and darker and more drizzly as the weeks go on leading up to the holidays.  No snowfall for us, just fog and mizzley rain. And its such a LOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGG term!

So when the new year hits I'm right in the mood for a bit of renewal.  The winter solstice has been and gone so now its official, the days are getting longer and the half term is only 6 weeks. That's doable. And the exam students have finally realised that they're leaving school in about 5 months and start to panic and focus in lessons.  They may even come to revision classes!

Have a great New Year and may it bring you all the you need and all the happiness you deserve!