Market Place Activity - What Different Roles did Women Play in Medieval Society?

This fun and interactive lesson looks at the different role played by women in medieval society from Nicola de la Haie’s defence of Lincoln Castle to the many forgotten stories of women working in hospitals or as apprentices in medieval towns. This important lesson focuses on trying to challenge the traditional interpretation of medieval women as primarily as caregivers responsible for their families. Instead, it explores how these women asserted themselves, gained influence, and exercised agency in various aspects of medieval life.

Once the gather and share has been completed, students can feedback their results to a class discussion or mark and improve their answers using the heads and tails activity we especially created to provide extra support. You can then choose to follow up with one of the many additional tasks that we have included, including writing an extended answer to the question: ‘Medieval women spent the majority of their time caring for their families.’ How far do you agree with this statement? This task is fully supported with writing frames, statement sorts, planning frames and as well as a missing word activity for the less able.

When you purchase this lesson, you will be able to download a 40 slide PowerPoint which contains aims, objectives, differentiated outcomes, starters, plenaries, information slides for the market place activities, video links, historical sources, heads and tails, statement sorts, a word search, missing word task and templates and writing frames. We have thrown in the kitchen sink with lesson. Please see the detailed preview.

The aims and objectives are:

Theme: Medieval Society
Know: What roles did women play in medieval society?
Understand: What freedom and rights did women have?
Evaluate: Compare and contrast the roles of women in different classes?
Skills: Source Analysis, Change, Continuity & Collaboration

WILF – What Am I Looking For?
Can You Describe: What roles did women play in medieval society?
Can You Explain: What freedoms and rights did medieval women have?
Can You Evaluate: How fairly were medieval women treated by society?

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