History and Literacy in Y7: Building the Lesson Around the Text

"The History in Practice" series offers teacher's books which support dynamic learning and effective teaching in history.

This first volume covers the teaching of History and Literacy in Y7.

It helps teachers to build their Y7 lessons around extended historical texts.

It models both the process of examining the text and creating learning activities based on it.

Christine Counsell is much in demand as a trainer in the areas of history and literacy and this book distills the best of her conclusions so you can apply her findings in your own context.

This is a must for all schools and advisors involved in the Key Stage 3 Foundation Subjects Strand or in implementing the government initiatives in the teaching of literacy particularly the Key Stage 3 Framework for Teaching English and Literacy Across the Curriculum.

It will also be extremely valuable for History PGCE Students.

Five extended examples are provided from the Y7 canon of content: The Roman Empire; The murder of Becket; Medieval village life; Medieval women; and The Children's Crusade.

Each unit focuses on extended text which is analysed for its potential for both historical and literacy learning. Then the book carefully lays out a range of trialled, precise and challenging learning activities based on these literary texts.

Further books will follow with similar activities for Y8 and Y9.

The carefully structured activities are usable as they stand as classroom activities.

At the same time, the introductory material in each Chapter and the reflection on good practice throughout the sample lessons build teachers' understanding of good history teaching and raise their expectations of both their pupils' and their own performance.