Civil War Project
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.
Week 5: The Civil War
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.
Finally – use your time well in order to prepare. Take a look at this document on Time Management Key Points and another on Time Management.
(Image: Channel4 History website)
Week 4: Gunpowder, Plot & Treason!(1605)
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.
Week 2: Elizabeth 1
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.
Summer Term: Week 1
This week we’ll be reviewing work from the end of last term. (Edward VI and Mary 1) 
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.
Week 12: Edward VI, Mary 1 & Elizabeth 1
In our final week we’ll be looking at Henry’s children and the effect they had on the English Reformation. See this religious “helter skelter” diagram. We’ll be looking at Edward VI, Mary 1 and Elizabeth 1.
Week 10: Dissolution of the Monasteries
Henry VIII took his most decisive step against the power of the church (in England) in 1538, when he began the 
Dissolution of the Monasteries. He did it piecemeal, perhaps to avoid too much outcry at the start. First the small, less powerful houses had their property confiscated and their buildings blighted (made unsuitable for use). They were followed the next year by the large houses. Philosophical concepts of the power of the king over church may have played a part in Henry’s decision to suppress the monasteries, but so did greed. The monasteries were rich, and a lot of that wealth found its way directly or indirectly to the royal treasury. Some of the monastery buildings were sold to wealthy gentry for use as country estates. Many others became sources of cheap building materials for local inhabitants. One of the results of the Dissolution of the Monasteries is that those who bought the old monastic lands were inclined to support Henry in his break with Rome, purely from self interest. (sourced from the Britian Express website)
This section is best completed using the textbook, “Societies in Change”. Study the text on page 28 and 29. On page 29, answer question 3 in your exercise books. Continue reading the text on “Why did Henry close the monasteries?” and then read page 30 and the top section on page 31. Answer all the questions in the yellow boxes, (1 to 6) in full sentences.
The homework is to complete these. Each Year 8 group will have a short test on Henry VIII in two week’s time. (22/3/2010) This should enable students to have enough time to revise.
Week 8: Henry VIII Project
We’ll be spending some time working on a project on Henry VIII. Our first lesson will begin by learning how to find, use and interpret various sources and resources from books, the internet and any other media including visual media.
We’ll use one of the resources from activehistory.co.uk – please ask if you don’t remember the school’s login details. Once into the site, navigate to Year 8, Tudors and Henry VIII. The first task I would like students to complete is the Head2Head interview with Henry VIII. (This is a little further down from the start of the page.)
Once the review of the interview is complete, students should look at this table document on Henry VIII. It will form the basis of the information which students should use to complete their project.
You might wish to do some extra reading on the topic of Henry’s split from the Catholic Church. I have listed some resources below.
The Tudor Project – Henry VIII
BBC History – Henry VIII Majesty with Menace
Thomas Cromwell and the divorce
The final project, mentioned briefly above, will be to produce a report on Henry VIII. You should take a stand and write from a viewpoint either for, or against him and his actions. (Use the table document referenced earlier for sections you might wish to cover.) Your report can be done in MS Publisher as a newspaper, you can produce an animated poster in Glogster (Sign up for a Glogster edu account using your school email only) see an example of Glogster here, another Museum Box series, a series of quizzes from Class Tools, you can try and use Prezi (NOT Powerpoint) Xtranormal, or GoAnimate (or another cartoon strip creator which will create useful summaries) to create an interesting “report”.
This is an opportunity to produce an independent study, so work effectively and don’t waste the time available.
Week 6: More of Henry VIII
More of Henry VIII this week. We’ll be studying the reasons why Henry so desperately wanted an heir and why he married so many times. Of course the most important factor in this section is Henry’s break from the Catholic Church and Rome. A very fun introduction can be found at the historystuff website. Students should visit the portrait gallery, look at the section which interviews all the members of Henry’s family and then answer the questions which accompany the webpages. A further website which details the lives Henry VIII’s wives is this one by Tudor History. In order to obtain an overview of the period we are studying, it might also be a good idea to take a look at a timeline of Henry’s reign from the English Kings and Queens Timeline.
Year 8 History 
