TS-9.3

approaches, but one we favour is to give out a number of pictures for the kids to ponder over and move around on their desks. A good example is a lesson planned by Marc Scruby, head of history at Priory School in Lewes (see bit.ly/ hrc-reichstag), which gets students to consider views of the Reichstag at different points between 1880 and 2004. A range of interior and exterior photographs are distributed throughout the class; the students’ job is to then match their pictures to a series of separate captions. This allows them to see what Germany looked like at different points in time and observe the changes between those periods, taking in the geographical and political landscape. It’s an activity that covers the AQA Germany and Cold War course in one go! There’s a trend among advocates of ‘knowledge-rich’ teaching to suggest that ‘progressive’ teaching methods such as this don’t work, but they’re wrong. It’s that they simply haven’t seen them planned and delivered properly.  A crime classic Another way of getting students to see the big picture of the Cold War is to use the ‘ What and where was the Cold War? ’ lesson available from The History Resource Cupboard (see bit. ly/hrc-coldwar), which provides a geographical perspective by showing when and where the key events of the Cold War took place on a world map. Use it before you dive into the detail. If you’re teaching crime and punishment, help your students see the whole course in one lesson by having them look at a series of images and work out how the course will be structured. Get the students to sort the images into different categories of ‘crimes’, ‘crime prevention’ and ‘punishments’, so that they can get an overview of what the course will be teaching them. Similarly, those teaching the American West can use a lesson created by Elena Stevens, a history teacher at St Philip Howard Catholic School in Chichester. Students will get to see the period from the different perspectives of Native Americans, homesteaders/ migrants and cowboys/ ranchers, and get a sense of the big stories that the course will be telling – see ‘Download’ opposite for more details. You can also use images in a slightly different way. An intriguing starting point for presenting an overview of the French Revolution could be to ask your class when they think a specific gruesome image – ‘Transporting Corpses during the Revolution’ by Etienne Bericourt (bit.ly/rev-1790) – was drawn. Having established the big picture of the course during the lesson, 21 teachwire.net/secondary ABOUT THE AUTHOR Richard McFahn is a lecturer in history education at the University of Sussex and a consultant, and runs the sites historyresourcecupboard.com and historyhomework.com show your students the key events of the period. By the end of the lesson they’ll be able to confidently date the picture, thus delivering a satisfying outcome for all, and have a sense of course’s shape and scope before you dive into the depth. I hope these examples of big picture overviews inspire you to let your students take in the view, and appreciate the whole of what you’re teaching them. CREATE YOUR OWN BIG PICTURE OVERVIEWS ✔ Remember that you should be able to work through your big picture framework quickly, within a one-hour lesson. ✔ You don’t have to cover all the details of the course in your overview; similar to a pencil sketch, concentrate on capturing the main features, then fill in the detail during later lessons. ✔ You can start new topics by presenting your ‘overview’, but it might be worth revisiting it mid-way through the unit and again at the end. ✔ Organise your overview around key themes that can be seen across the unit, rather than just a set of random events. ✔ Pictures from different stages of a specific period will give your students an accessible way to more fully appreciate the topic under discussion. H I S TO R Y