8. Help students see the overview in depth studies as well as themes
Overviews are often associated with Thematic studies because of the obvious necessity of seeing the big picture of long spans of time. However it is just as important for students to gain an overview of a shorter period being studied in depth – therefore do not leave them to do this implicitly as the course progresses but create activities in the first lessons of a new exam unit that enable students to build their own overview of the key themes, events and individuals.
One reason establishing a durable, robust overview at the outset is important is to give students the confidence that they have an overall sense of events and the issues they are going to study. If we think about this as learners ourselves most of us read more positively and effectively when we already know something about a topic in comparison with a topic that’s new to us. That functions at all levels of knowledge – which makes the early acquisition of an outline vital for providing a context for the next stages of learning about a period and its events.
In addition, without a clear overview there’s nothing to hang further learning on and that creates the ever-present danger of lots of reading and note-taking without any clear sense of direction. That in turn leads to frustration and reduced motivation. Thus the creation of an effective outline means students have established a base level of knowledge which they can then deepen through the course – and which provides context for the new things they learn. That initial outline helps make sense of the details as they come to them.
It is important is that such outlines are more than timelines which tend to be inert lists of events, lacking story and impact. ‘Time-story’ conveys what’s needed more effectively as the construction of a ‘time-story’ requires students to tell a story with an interpretation. This is very similar to the use of living graphs (more enjoyably known as ‘graphs with attitude’) which can be plotted to tell a story with students explaining aloud the story that’s visible on the graph – which is important, both for consolidation and to develop the use of the vocabulary of the topic.
For example, in a depth study on ‘Germany 1919-33’, build an overview of the rise of the Nazi party and compare this to the popularity of the Weimar Republic (See Resource File, Page 15). For a study of the Cold War students can plot the key events and develop a hypothesis regarding the times when the Cold War reached its most dangerous points.
For discussion of the creation of overviews or ‘time-stories’ at A level see this article which also contains an example of a visual overview and further thoughts from other teachers see HERE …
For explanations of some of the variety of ways living graphs can be used see HERE …
And if you are starting out in teaching and are looking for information on a range of other teaching strategies and what they can be deployed to teach see HERE …