This task helps pupils to develop an overview of the changes ushered in by industrialisation. The aim is to get pupils to generalise from the particular, identifying which groups of people benefited and which suffered. By dating the cards (there are 32 cards: 7 from 1750-1800: 15 from 1800-1850 and 10 from 1850-1900) a new level of sophistication is built in which helps develop pupils’ chronological perspective on the period.
Students are each given a different cut-up role card. Their job is to find out, from all the others, what their (different) experience of living through this period was. Students then classify their experiences into two groups: main winners and losers. They then discuss if there were changes over the period or whether the same types of people were winners.