Using archives for learning

Scenario: Year 7 experience of lesson on Medieval Village Life

You are studying a history topic called Medieval Realms. Your teacher told you last time that you were going to look at some original sources to find out about Medieval village life. You have a fantastic lesson based around one source entitled Manorial Court Records. You are able to tie the manorial court records into the lesson you did on looking at a medieval village; you particularly liked finding out what their houses were like and you tried very hard to conjure up a picture of a medieval house when the teacher asked you to close your eyes and imagine some of the sounds you could hear...

Fine so far, but:

• What sort of image has the pupil got in terms of the records that people kept?
• Do they know what the manorial court records look like? Do they need to know?
• Aren't they being presented with a rather cleaned up version of history?
• Is there a sense in which they think the artist has missed out the word processor in the picture in the textbook?!
• Have they got a real sense that trying to find out about life in the past that can be a tricky job?

The problem: textbook sources have been sanitised:

• They have been cleaned up and presented in nice little neat boxes.
• At best, they are a few paragraphs long.
• They always come with a title and normally a little extra on who wrote them and when.
• They are always referred to as Source A or B, Source 1 or 2, and they always fit onto a double page!
• Sometimes they are even colour coded.

We have removed the intrigue; we are in danger of boring kids to death when it comes to using sources!

If we use original source material, it can often elicit:

• Cor that's old miss (chronology)
• Didn't they write funny? (empathy / perspective on the period)
• What are they talking about? (historical enquiry)
• That doesn't really tell us about … (evaluation / interpretation)
• Where did you get it from Sir? (provenance)
• Can I have a look please?! (intrigue / hook in)

It is possible to use original sources to identify aspects that allow access to the wider, bigger picture. Eg we can use examples of newspaper censorship in World War Two Nottinghamshire to question and explore censorship at a national level and in other countries at the time.

Conclusions:

• We need to identify when archive material can be used most appropriately in the curriculum.
• We need to think through the questions that we ask when we teach with archive materials.
• We need to develop learning activities that allow pupils to engage with archive material.
• We need to develop teaching methods that enable the building of knowledge out from the local to the national and international perspectives.