Planning for enquiry work using interpretations should take into account the following:

 

Interpretations ... or not? 1. Have you selected a meaningful chunk of history as a basis for the enquiry? Different interpretations of nineteenth-century concrete-mixing in Essex is not a good idea! 2. How many interpretations will pupils encounter during the enquiry? Will you explore one interpretation in depth or expose pupils to several different interpretations? 3. What types of historical interpretations will pupils study? Academic? Educational? Fictional? Popular? 4. What particular understanding about interpretations of history do you want to develop in the enquiry? 5. How will you sequence the learning so that pupils can produce a rigorous and enjoyable ‘final product' at the end of the enquiry?

 

Lastly, Dr. Michael Riley presented an enquiry written for Year 7 pupils that deliberately mirrored the pattern of the previous one for Year 6:

 

Step One

The starting point was Simon Schama's popular TV series History of Britain. Dr. Riley said that Schama sees his approach to television history as entertainment as well as education. He showed a clip, lasting about a minute, from one of the programmes introducing the events of 1066 (with the pupils, two other similar clips were chosen). Each clip lasted about one minute. The children would be invited to analyse the clips in a similar way to the analysis of Jude in the Year 6 enquiry. One question posed was: ‘How do you stop people from switching over channels?'

 

Step Two

The outcome of the enquiry was then introduced. This was to create a one-minute introduction to a programme on medieval peasants for Simon Schama's History of Britain. Like the Year 6 enquiry on Jude, pupils would need sufficient background information on medieval peasants to complete the task. For this he used two sources, detailed below.

 

Step Three

Dr. Riley gave out a deliberately jumbled series of images from the Luttrell Psalter, 1320-1340, which showed peasants going through the process of making bread. In pairs, pupils had to put the images in chronological order. A class discussion followed as to what was the most likely order. This gave pupils some idea of a basic routine for medieval peasant life.

 

Step Four

With the group divided into pairs, Dr. Riley gave out the following extracts from the Somerset Coroner's Rolls for 1314-1321 which recorded incidents of unusual deaths. Each pair picked a different incident. One person slumped over the desk pretending to be dead, whilst the other person explained from the record how that person had died. This lead to a discussion about what these incidents tell us about peasant life and provided memorable raw material for pupils to incorporate in the final task.

Download Riley_resource_3 (attached below)

 

Step Five

Pupils used the following frame to plan their own one-minute introduction to the proposed programme for Simon Schama's episode on medieval peasants:

Download Riley_resource_4 (attached below)

‘Not Just instruction, but pleasure ...'

Create a one-minute introduction to the programme on Medieval peasants for Simon Schama's History of Britain.

You can use:
Images from the Luttrell Psalter, 1320-40
The Somerset Coroner's Rolls, 1314-21
Background reading on Medieval peasants

 

Text
Main points? Individual people? Interest-grabbing? Delivery? Direction
Location filming? Filming the documents? Actor's voices? Silent?

1-20 seconds
21-40 seconds
41-60 seconds

 

Dr. Riley closed the session by stressing the importance of the outcome of an enquiry on interpretations. It should really motivate and engage pupils. Dr. Riley suggested the following approaches to planning interpretations-focused enquiries:

 

Enthusing Pupils About Interpretations: How does the film-maker / novelist / historian get us on the side of - ? How can we plan / write / make a -in the style of - ? What makes - such a powerful - ? Enraging Pupils About Interpretations Why are people so angry about - ? How should we complain about - ? Why do we need a better interpretation of - ? Engaging Pupils With Academic Debate Why can't historians agree about - ? Why has - been intrepreted so differently? How can historians disagree so much about? Helping Pupils to Understand What An Interpretation is Tells Us About The Society That Produced It What does - tell us about American society in the late twentieth century? Why does - matter today? Why do Hollywood films about - leave out - ? Helping Pupils to Understand Why Interpretations Can Change Through Time Why have such different stories been told about - ? What did the Victorians think about - ? Why have people changed their minds about - ?

 

Dr. Riley also said, teachers need to take into account the five following points when planning such work for pupils: