Students will be aware that for the next couple of weeks we will be working on a mini project on the English Civil War. Browse through the photos on the right hand side to refresh yourselves of some of the things we encountered on our trip to Leeds. One of these might jog your memory and lead you to a decision as to what topic you’d like to cover for your project.
As a reminder:
- Your mini project must be on some aspect of the English Civil War.
- The project must include at least the equivalent of four written pages from an exercise book and an additional number of diagrams, maps, illustrations and so on.
- The project could be about weaponry, the role of an individual, a type of civil war soldier, cavalryman, musketeer, pike man, or a specific battle.
- You will need to collect information and complete thorough research.
- Most sources of information are acceptable, but it must not be derived solely from the internet.
- A full bibliography will be required.
- Any suspicion of copying and pasting chunks of information from a source will be firmly dealt with.
Students will have received sheets for the trip to the Leeds Armouries and might wish to explore some of the online collections in order to prepare themselves in advance. The museum has a YouTube channel as well, full of interesting video clips.
Revision sheets for the exams have been distributed. Our final topic this term will be The English Civil War. HistoryontheNet has a solid overview of the topic, as does the text book. Please use the text book and the document handed out in class which facilitates a mini- essay, in order to prepare for the exam.
I’ve added a mini-essay guide on the Gunpowder Plot to this entry.
(Image: Channel4 History website)
Students have been working in groups on presenting a case for or against the gunpowder plotters. An excellent website from show.me has a good overview of events, full of original material. If you’ve left your text book at school, or if you want to read a little further on the topic – this is an excellent read.
There is also a very good list of resources, revision games and videos (Channel 4 On Demand. Remember that we cannot play these in school because of our proxy server, but you could do so at home.) from teacher Simon Mills. Although he teaches in a Junior school, the list of resources he has collected are very useful for consolidating this section of work.
A rather zany video on this section of work is available from Google videos. It stars Nick Knowles who explores the facts and the fiction behind the legendary Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. There are several more good videos from BBC Worldwide on YouTube.
Students might find this presentation on the topic useful as a summary overview.
We’ll start this week’s lesson by looking at a presentation by Mr Millward-Hopkins entitled, “Elizabeth’s problems“. As its an interactive presentation with a task sheet for students,(from Mr Jones) its best downloaded as a PowerPoint presentation. You might wish to view more hisory resources from SchoolHistory.co.uk.
- We’ll follow this with a discussion and a look at excellent content from www.historyonthenet.com, specifically the content on: Elizabeth’s Life, Official Portraits of Elizabeth 1, Discoverers and Explorers of the time and The Spanish Armada.
Homework is referenced on the plannerLIVE link to the right of this blog entry.
I thought students might find this article interesting, there is a suggestion that hair in a locket of Mary 1 could be used for an attempt to match the DNA to the bones found in the Tower of London.
Students should remember to have letters for the History trip signed and returned to me as soon as possible.