History at key stage 3 (Year 8)
Unit 7: Images of an age what can we learn from portraits 1500-1750?
Section 4: Images of an age: who was powerful?
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Objectives |
| Children should learn: |
- to sort and clarify information
- about some key individuals from the period 1500-1750
- about the reasons why some individuals are powerful
- to use prior knowledge, including period knowledge, to inform inferences
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Activities |
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Outcomes |
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Children: |
- Give pupils a range of reproductions of portraits of kings, queens and leading individuals 1500-1750.
- Working in pairs or small groups, pupils sort the portraits into different categories. Ask pupils to work out their own categories to sort and re-sort. Pupils could be given, initially, a small number of portraits to sort and then these could gradually be added to and pupils would need to re-categorise.
- Lead a class discussion on differences between the categories and how the grouping of portraits altered as the categories changed.
- Ask pupils to rank the persons portrayed from the most powerful to the least powerful.
- Lead a class discussion on the reasons behind the ranking.
- Ask pupils to put the portraits in chronological order, and ask questions about the criteria they used,
eg How did you do this? What clues did you get from the portraits? How would you check if you were right?
- Pupils undertake research to identify the individuals and to confirm their decisions about chronology, and use their findings to contribute to the creation of a class timeline.
- Placing portraits along a timeline could show how people's lives overlapped and interlinked, and could be accompanied by mini-biographies.
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- explain the criteria used to sort portraits
- identify individuals and suggest reasons why they were powerful
- describe aspects of change 1500-1750
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Points to note |
- Portraits should include some of children who became powerful or influential adults, some individuals from ethnic minorities, and some people whose portraits might not immediately suggest power.
- The discussion on power should address those factors that make an individual powerful and those that tend to make them powerless,
eg childhood.
- Through both the selection of portraits and the discussion, teachers should help pupils to consider changes over time in who/what was considered powerful and important.
- Language for learning: pupils will understand and use correctly terms of qualification and comparison,
eg more, most, less, least.
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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of
activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by
moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.
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