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Curating the imagined past: world building in the history curriculum
Teaching History article
Mike Hill was concerned that his students were unable to genuinely inhabit the historical places they encountered in his lessons. Drawing on fields as varied as history-teacher research, philosophy, and literary and media theory, Hill identified ways to curate his students’ constructions of ‘secondary worlds’ in the historical past, including...
Curating the imagined past: world building in the history curriculum
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Teaching, learning and sharing medieval history for all
Teaching History article
Medieval history is on the rise. Among the many recent reforms in the history curriculum is a requirement for medieval themes at GCSE and across the country the new linear A-level offers fresh opportunities for teachers to look beyond the traditional diet of Tudors and modern history. The huge divide...
Teaching, learning and sharing medieval history for all
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Teaching History 106: Citizens and Communities
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
This edition deals with the complex debate about whether history should be taught for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons. Balancing the rationaland the emotional in the teaching of contentious topics, Historical significance, Local historical enquiry, Citizenship, Teaching political concepts to post-16 students and much more...
‘Don’t worry, Mr. Trimble. We can...
Teaching History 106: Citizens and Communities
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Exploring the challenges involved in reading and writing historical narrative
Teaching History article
‘English king Frederick I won at Arsuf, then took Acre, then they all went home': exploring the challenges involved in reading and writing historical narrative
Paula Worth draws on three professional traditions in history education in order to build a lesson sequence on the Crusades for her Year 7s. First,...
Exploring the challenges involved in reading and writing historical narrative
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Census 2021: using the census in the history classroom
Article
As we approach the next census in March 2021, we are reminded of what a rich historical source the census is. For historians, using the census can shine a light on particular people and places – a snapshot in time. Big stories can be told through a sharp local lens...
Census 2021: using the census in the history classroom
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Polychronicon 156: The transnational history of the First World War
Teaching History feature
With the publication in 2014 of the Cambridge History of the First World War, we enter a new transnational phase in the historical understanding of the conflict. The reasons why this change has come about are evident.
The first is that there are more transnational historians writing the history of...
Polychronicon 156: The transnational history of the First World War
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Historical anniversaries calendar
Article
Historical anniversaries can be a great way to get children and young people interested in a subject or to raise awareness about a particular issue.
This resource is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality history and education resources along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of...
Historical anniversaries calendar
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An Intimate History of Your Home - Lucy Worsley
Historian Article
‘You've gone over to The Dark Side'.
These were the words of a well-respected historian to whom I'd been enthusing about the pleasures and perils of Dressing Up.
During 2009-10 I spent several months in historic costume, recreating the habits and rituals of domestic life in the past. It was...
An Intimate History of Your Home - Lucy Worsley
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How do you construct an historical claim?
Teaching History article
While preparing her Year 12 students for an International Baccalaureate paper on early Islam, Kirstie Murray became concerned that students' weaknesses in making claims would be particularly exposed by the challenging complexity of this topic's source record and its contested historiography.
Drawing on the practice of other history teachers, especially...
How do you construct an historical claim?
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The Historian 119: Women in History
The magazine of the Historical Association
5 Editorial
6 Queenship in Medieval England: A Changing Dynamic? - Louise Wilkinson (Read article)
12 Petticoat Politicians: Women and the Politics of the Parish in England - Sarah Richardson (Read article)
17 The President's Column
18 Strange Journey: the life of Dorothy Eckersley - Stephen M. Cullen (Read Article)...
The Historian 119: Women in History
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Beyond tokenism: diverse history post-14
Teaching History Article
Nick Dennis shows how a ‘multidirectional memory’ approach to teaching history can move history teachers beyond seeing black history as separate or distracting from the history that must be aught at examination level. He gives examples of ways in which a diverse history can be built into examination courses, strengthening...
Beyond tokenism: diverse history post-14
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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
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Moral dilemmas: history teaching and the Holocaust
Teaching History article
The new Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London has been very favourably received by the general public, and by teachers and their students. Initially controversial - was a war museum the ideal site for such an exhibition, for example? - it has since been widely praised for...
Moral dilemmas: history teaching and the Holocaust
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The Effect of Prior Knowledge on Teaching International History
IJHLTR Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 15, Number 1 – Autumn/Winter 2017ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
The students’ prior knowledge is considered to be a factor of paramount importance to the learning process, particularly when teaching history in a diverse and multicultural learning environment. This paper explores the issue...
The Effect of Prior Knowledge on Teaching International History
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Getting medieval (and global) at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
Taking new historical research into the classroom: getting medieval (and global) at Key Stage 3
Although history teachers frequently work with academic historical writing, direct face-to-face encounters with academic historians are rare in secondary history classrooms. This article reports a collaboration between an academic historian and a history teacher that...
Getting medieval (and global) at Key Stage 3
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Historical thinking and art education in Canada’s era of societal reckoning
Teaching History article
Michael Pitblado and Agnieszka Chalas, history teacher and art teacher respectively, describe how and why they responded to a call by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to engage students with difficult aspects of Canada’s past, including the forced cultural assimilation of Indigenous peoples through the Indian Residential School System. Having reflected...
Historical thinking and art education in Canada’s era of societal reckoning
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Studying our own school’s archives to promote historical understanding in Year 7
Teaching History article
Helen Southwood here sets out an example of a hyperlocal history study the focus of which is her own school. She presents a rationale both for the study of hyperlocal history as a means of engaging students and developing their skills, and for the pedagogical use of previously uncatalogued school archives....
Studying our own school’s archives to promote historical understanding in Year 7
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Broadening horizons: using cross-curricular conversations to support historical understanding
Teaching History article
Bettney and Ridley focus on the context in which we teach and in which our students learn and on history in the context of the whole school curriculum and in relation to education about personal development. Taking the example of learning about parliament, they explore how the history curriculum and the...
Broadening horizons: using cross-curricular conversations to support historical understanding
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School History Scene: the unique contribution of theatre to history teaching
Teaching History article
The study of history has to be vibrant. It is about real people, real dramas, real narrative, real human dilemmas. It is not surprising that, despite manifold structural pressures working against us, take-up for GCSE history is once again buoyant. There are all manner of reasons for this - is...
School History Scene: the unique contribution of theatre to history teaching
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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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Come together: putting popular music at the heart of historical enquiry
Teaching History article
Drawing on a wide range of history teachers’ existing published work and presenting diverse examples of his own practice, David Ingledew builds a thorough curricular and pedagogic rationale for using popular music in history teaching. He shows how lyrics and music can be used as stimulus for various kinds of analysis and...
Come together: putting popular music at the heart of historical enquiry
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Imagining cities: exploring historical sites as contested spaces
Teaching History article
Geraint Brown and Matt Stanford share the daunting challenge and intriguing opportunities that are presented by leading a school history trip to a site as complex as Berlin. That the city is a palimpsest, layered with stories and tissued with conflicting identities, experiences and meanings, makes planning a trip extremely...
Imagining cities: exploring historical sites as contested spaces
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‘It’s More Complex Than I Assumed’
IJHLTR Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 15, Number 1 – Autumn/Winter 2017ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
As with many nations, the teaching of history in Australian schools is often contested. Two prevailing standpoints can be identified, the first of which, in broad terms, emphasises the acquisition of historical knowledge....
‘It’s More Complex Than I Assumed’
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Exploring and Teaching Medieval History in Schools
A secondary education publication of the Historical Association
This resource is free to everyone. For access to our library of high-quality secondary history materials along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of history teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
Three words sum up the approach of this publication to the...
Exploring and Teaching Medieval History in Schools
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From the history of maths to the history of greatness
Teaching History article
Readers of Teaching History will be familiar with the benefits and difficulties of cross-curricular planning, and the pages of this journal have often carried analysis of successful collaborations with the English department, or music, or geography. Harry Fletcher-Wood describes in this article a collaboration involving maths, providing for us the...
From the history of maths to the history of greatness
