Writing History 7-11

Book excerpt: Writing History 7-11 supports students and primary teachers helping them to explore ways in which activities involving the talk that underpins historical enquiry can be developed into reading and exciting, extended, reflective writing. The step that teachers and pupils take from ‘talk for learning’ to ‘talk for writing’ is a vital one. In this book the authors argue that all aspects of historical enquiry leading to writing involve discussion and dialogue which permeate every aspect of ‘doing history’. From this perspective they set out a theoretical framework for understanding the role of talk and reading in developing pupils’ critical thinking and confident reflective writing, then demonstrate through a series of case studies, in which teachers, university lecturers and pupils work together, how the theory is put into practice in the classroom. Themes include: How to support children in writing in a variety of interesting genres How to make links between the National Curriculum (2013) for History and for English How to plan for breadth and depth studies in the new National Curriculum How activities in History 5 – 11 can be developed into exciting extended writing The second half of the book draws upon case studies from a number of real primary classrooms with children of different ages. Each case study shows how teaching was planned to develop children’s confidence and enjoyment in discussion and to scaffold reasoned, written explanation and argument. Topics presented are all relevant to the new curriculum framework and include talking and reading about: Time, change and significance over 6000 years - writing a television script Celtic Britain and the Roman Army - writing a travel brochure about Celtic Britain The destruction of Roman towns - writing a Saxon poem An archaeological investigation of a body in a Danish peat bog - writing a newspaper report Did any countries benefit from WW11? - writing an argued viewpoint The expansion westwards of European settlers - writing a flap book exploring different perspectives. This indispensable book provides not only sources for pupils to use in their writing, but also models and exemplars of different styles and voices to draw upon.