Build a reading and research culture

It is important to build a reading and research culture within a history class. Reading around a topic should be set as a clear expectation. Students need to be shown the importance of going beyond the textbook or google. They can be set reading, watching, surfing and listening lists for each key topic, with refinements such as those below:

• The reading list might include a reference to a chapter from a novel as well as an article or chapter from a history book.

• In terms of a watching list, students might be set the task of watching 5 different you tube clips on the end of the Cold War. They could make notes on the interpretation presented in the clip, how the message is conveyed, before reaching a judgement on how credible the interpretation is.

• Listening lists might include references to a good podcast or a song.

• Whilst surfing lists direct student to useful websites and steer them away from an over-reliance on google and Wikipedia. At the same time students need to be introduced to the necessity of evaluating a website as they would a historical document – who’s writing it and why? Can its statements and views by corroborated by cross-referencing to other sites or to books?

Developing effective research skills

Too often students are asked to research topics from sources without explicit instructions on how to complete this process. Four key skills need to be explicitly developed through teacher modelling and class discussion of the different roles of these skills in effective learning, identifying their value:

• Generating questions from the text

• Skimming (in order to get a broad overview of what the text is about before reading again for detail)

• Scanning (being able to detect key information)

• Identifying ‘loaded language’ in sources and texts and scripts of various kinds (paying close attention to words of phrases that change the context of a sentence)

See example Page KP2-a

Effective note-taking also needs to be taught explicitly. For example, students can be introduced to the Cornell method of note-taking which encourages students to review and reduce their notes, producing a summary of the key points and question cues for memory.

See lsc.cornell.edu

The Importance of Knowledge Organizers

We’ll begin with our definition of the term ‘Knowledge Organisers’ because, while this term is widely used, it is interpreted in different ways. Knowledge Organisers are sorting frames which help students deal with problem of organising the information they collect during their research but the key point in our approach is that they are NOT completed in full by teachers and then given to students as a concise, ready-organised summary of content. If such a complete Knowledge Organiser is given to students this rarely leads to deeper learning as students play no part in choosing which details to include and where to place them in the Organiser.

Students need to work semi-completed Organisers, even when first introduced to their use, and then are given more and more responsibility for filling in the Organisers as a course continues. It is therefore crucial that this use of Knowledge Organisers for organising research is modelled for the students as you progress through an historical enquiry. It’s important to go well beyond simply providing students with large pre-designed frames by encouraging ‘thinking out loud’ and discussing with them where to place information in the sorting-frame and what information to include. Over time students should be encouraged to design their own knowledge organisers or to select the most appropriate knowledge organiser from a toolkit that has been built up during the course. The tool box analogy helps students see that they have options and need to think about choosing the most appropriate Knowledge Organiser, depending on the nature of the research task and the conceptual focus of the enquiry.

For example:

1. Mind maps are useful for recording key features of a period.

See example Page KP2-b

2. Living graphs can be used to plot change over time and identify turning points

See example Page KP2-c

3. ‘Compare and contrast’ mats or venn diagrams can help students explore similarities and differences. For example, if students are exploring how similar two periods are within the thematic study a venn diagram can be used to record features that are distinctive to each period, whilst also recording similarities where the two circles overlap.

Venn diagrams can also be used to explore similarities and differences between the motives of people in the past. In the example below the venn diagram helps students explore patterns relating to the reasons why many barons turned against King John.

See example Page KP2-d

4. Factors tables help students explore and weigh the importance of causal factors

See example Page KP2-e

5. Individuals charts or top trump cards help students structure their notes on the short and long term impact of individuals, events or discoveries 

See example Page KP2-f