This lesson encourages students to take their understanding of the events of the Russian Civil War to a new level by ‘making their own meaning’. They use history mystery cards which they have to categorise before looking at attempts by historians to group factors. Lower-attaining students rely on learning a simple mnemonic-SLUG whilst more able have to improve a GCSE answer to turn it into an A* answer.
I am grateful to Paul Roberts, AST for history when in Hampshire, now at Ilfracombe College for his contribution to this lesson.
Learning objectives
- students analyse and categorise and group specific causes
- they prioritise their importance and
- improve an already good GCSE answer, applying their new-found knowledge and understanding
Step 1
Students are shown a short quotation from Hobsbawn (slide 2 on the PowerPoint presentation) trying to explain why the Reds won, which leads onto an analysis of White weaknesses and Red strengths.
Step 2
Students are given 3 minutes to see if they can, in pairs, quickly come up with any ideas under those two headings based on what they know already from studying the events
Step 3
To accelerate the learning, students are then given a set of history mystery
