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Teaching
points
Introduction:
Students
should be reminded of the requirements for the
successful completion of the Key Skills portfolio.
See your schools Key Skills coordinator for details.
They should be reminded that peoples beliefs at the
time of the Great plague were varied and that
Science wasn't at a stage where identification of
cause and cure was possible. A reminder of
supernatural and spiritual beliefs may be of benefit
to students.
Main
activity:
(1)
From the Medieval Activities page click on excel
spreadsheet. Wait patiently whilst this downloads
and save it straight away. The spreadsheet is
partially completed. open the document in excel and
then return to the browser. click on the broadsheet
newspaper link. discuss what the newspaper tells us
about peoples beliefs at the time of the Plague: it
demonstrates that they had a mixture of scientific
and supernatural approaches to disease.
After
discussing what the newspaper tells us click on
statistical data. This shows a close up of the data
from the newspaper. Students use this data to
complete the excel spreadsheet. The Spreadsheet can
be downloaded from this page instead of at the
outset if necessary. Ensure that the spreadsheet is
saved before returning to the Activities page.
Students
independently find two pages about the Plague. These
could come from the Plague Links, an encyclopaedia
or text books. They then use these two pages to
write a report.
This
report must include:
- the
causes of the disease
- the
consequences of the disease
- a
contemporary account of attitudes towards the
disease
- an
image (necessary for the Key Skills portfolio)
The
report should be no longer than 300 words long.
Students
then use all of the information that they have
found, on this site or from alternative sources, to
create a presentation. If they use ICT to facilitate
this presentation (i.e. PowerPoint) they will be
covering more of the key Skills criteria than if
they opt for an OHT based presentation. The
presentation should include at least one image and
ought to make use of the data that they have
collected in the Spreadsheet. The presentation can
be about any aspect of the Plague. (Its spread or
impact proving to be the most popular and
successfully completed amongst my students).
Presentations
should be made to a group or the class. evidence of
what they have done needs to be recorded for the Key
Skills portfolio. This can be done through: saving
the PowerPoint slides to disk, using a video
recording of the presentation or through making
detailed notes of the students presentation: a
combination of these is most beneficial for the
students submission.
The
teachers input into the construction of the report
and presentation should be minimal (similar to
coursework in many ways).
Plenary:
In
theory the students themselves will provide
plenaries to their own presentations. an overview of
what the strengths and weaknesses of the cohorts
work should be given and feedback on the quality of
individual tasks should be recorded using your
departmental assessment procedures.
Examples
of follow up activities that have been suggested by
users of this activity are:
Asking
the students to make the presentation to Year 8
students who are studying the great Plague as part
of their Key Stage 3 studies.
If
you have any comments about your use of the Great
Plague activities please e-mail me to let me know
how successful the activity was. feedback will be of
great use in the planning of future activities of a
similar nature.
Link
to Great plague activity
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