Interpretation in Year 9
To introduce the course, I always try to surprise my students. Also, I devote one or two lessons to history itself, so that students remember that we do more than listing facts (actually, this is the least that we do). To introduce Year 9 to interpretation, I came up with an activity that worked really well.
The main topic this year is Argentina in the 19th century, but this is by no means dislocated from European history thus we start with a revision of the French Revolution and we plunge into Napoleon's rule. But, since I first want to deal with historical practice per se, I planned to mention some historiographic lines of thought (liberals, materialists, romantics, positivists). So, to connect Napoleon to historiography (i.e. different interpretations of history), I thought of the following activity, which I do not remember if I invented it myself or got it from someone else. Here it goes:
I called one of the students to my laptop and showed him/her this picture (due to copyright reasons, I will not publish it here). It shows Napoleon Bonaparte fleeing a battle. So the student would describe it and the rest would draw. It is really funny to see them try to describe what they see and the others trying to get what he/she says. In the end, I showed them the picture and, after they made some comments, I ask them if what they have drawn is the same or not. They usually answered "yes but no" which is great because you can dig with more questions: How come they are the same? Look at them! or Are not your drawings based on the same description? How come they are all different? and you can get to the concept of different ways to see/understand/interpret history.
Lovely.
Taboo words.
This is a great name to play in class both as a starter or a plenary. I always have a deck of cards I made myself because whenever you have 10 minutes to spare, they come in quite handy. Last year, when I started introducing this game to my lessons, I made a 'general' deck with taboo words such as Europe, New World, Reformation or Pope. You write the word that the rest of the class have to guess in bold and the words that the student cannot mention beneath it. For example:
NEW WORLD
Cristopher Columbus
America
Discovery
The student that describes the taboo word cannot mention the words beneath it. It is great to revise new concepts such as depotism because students have to use their own vocabulary to define it. Enjoy!
For an extended version of this activity, click here.
For an extended version of this activity, click here.
