This is a fully resourced lesson focusing on the second order concept of interpretation. Students watch two video clips (Disney and Alan Rickmann’s interpretations of Rasputin) and complete a VENN diagram as their starter activity to introduce the idea that there are very different views of Rasputin. They then work through a detailed set of notes before rifling through a 50+ piece card sort to identify arguments in favour of him being a Mad Monk or indeed a Holy Man. Students use this information to complete a written task (report for the Okhrana) using the criteria-driven assessment template provided. In the plenary students look through five different images of Rasputin and are invited to shout out their thoughts as the squares are taken away to reveal the picture.
Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope your students get as much out of this fully-resourced lesson as much as mine do.
This is one of my favourite lessons. It take a little bit of preparation by the teacher beforehand though, although there is a short cut you can take too.
In this lesson you will find six codes to crack and six missions all of which help answer the question ‘how did Rasputin die?’. As the class figure out the codes and complete the missions they fill in the worksheets provided. By the end they will have six different responses which help them understand the Felix Youssopov-inspired version of events but which also leave them questioning this version of events.
This lesson works best with a few props (beard, bottle, crucifix etc as well as six boxes and six padlocks) but you can if you prefer simply print off the codes and print them back to back instead.
Any questions please email me. This lesson has been pitched towards high achieving secondary aged students and please do be aware there is one image of a dead Rasputin in this lesson. Please include/leave out at your discretion.
In this lesson’s starter activity students are introduced to some of the weird ideas that existed before Marco Polo’s travels (such as headless men and women with single giant feet) and there are graduated learning outcomes provided (all of you will/some of you will/most of you will). Students are then provided with background information about Marco Polo’s voyage and are given a list of key events on slide 14. The main activity is that students are asked to use this information to create an Instagram style storyboard to narrow this down to the ten key events of his life (examples are given). The lesson concludes with a Dingbats plenary designed to get students to shout out some key words relating to Marco Polo’s voyage.
I hope your students enjoy this lesson as much as mine and thanks for your interest. Please be aware this lesson is pitched at high ability secondary aged students (11+). I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine do (I teach in China so this is always an extremely popular lesson with my students!) and please let me know if you have any questions.
In this lesson students begin with a quick starter activity to see how many Rolls-Royce owning celebrities they can identify - they’re usually rather surprised to see that Lenin is one of these! The lesson has learning objectives which are graduated (all of you/most of you/some of you) and the class then work through a very detailed set of background information/notes focused on Lenin’s big promises of peace, land, and bread. The main activity is then for students to collate information on how well he achieved his aims in these three areas by creating a ‘school report card’ on him. A completed example is also included. The lesson then concludes with a simple voting plenary which asks students to answer the lesson’s question and to support it with evidence (ie did he achieve his promises of peace, land and bread).
This lesson is aimed at high achieving secondary students. Please do ask if you have any questions and thanks for popping by. I hope your students get as much out of this activity as mine do.
In this lesson students begin with a starter activity which reveals Marco Polo believed in some odd things, including men with dogs’ heads! From here they work through some background information including the views of historian Dr. Frances Woods who believes Marco Polo never really made it to China after all. In the main activity students sort evidence from a card sort into two columns, things that suggest he did go to China (the accuracy of his descriptions of things like currency for example) and evidence that suggests he did not actually visit China (his book was ghost written and he makes no mention of things like chopsticks or the Great Wall etc.) The lesson concludes with a plenary where students vote on their beliefs.
It is a great lesson designed to get students thinking and can be taught as part of an Ancient China/Mongol Empire unit or as a stand-alone lesson.
Please note this lesson has been pitched towards high achieving secondary aged students. Please do ask if you have any questions and I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as mine always do.
Please note: To use this lesson you need to have a copy of the 1998 animated Disney movie Mulan.
This is a great lesson in which students are given graduated learning objectives (some of you will / most of you will / and all of you will) in order to help them answer the essential question 'what can we learn about Ancient China from the Disney movie Mulan?".
The lesson begins with a starter activity to engage your students in which they are invited to guess the odd one out from a group of Disney characters (the answer is Mulan - because she has killed whereas the others, Bambi’s mother et al, had been killed. This leads them into the lesson nicely and the idea that the ballad of Hua Mulan is no ordinary ‘Disney Princess.’
The class then work through 45 different evidence cards and arrange these into things they can learn from the movie (ie accurate things like the use of rickshaws and only the Emperor being allowed to wear yellow etc) as well as movie mistakes and things which are inaccurate (such as Mulan being allowed to hug the Emperor and the way she inserts her chopsticks vertically into her rice etc). There are two versions of this card sort, one for students who like a challenge and a differentiated version for students who need a more straightforward task. Students can also divide them using the labels given (info relating to women, family, rule and government, culture, society, military etc.
Students then watch the movie and tick off those they spot (a nice end of term type activity - but not simply ‘watching a movie for the sake of it’!).
From this the class then complete a movie review exercise using the template given before attempting a plenary in which they vote with their feet to establish how many stars (1-5) they would rate the movie for historical authenticity (ie they now answer the essential question). I have also included a final slide which is an assessment rubric should you wish to turn this series of lessons into a formal testing point.
I teach this to high achieving high school students as part of a scheme of learning about Ancient China and I hope your students get as much out of it as mine always do.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask and thanks again for your interest in this lesson, which is in PPT form but which does need the buyer to have purchased a copy of the 1998 animated movie (not the 2020 version.)
I give my students a learning journey sheet for each topic covered for Core Content B: International Relations since 1919 and also the B and C Depth Studies on Germany 1918-45 and Russia 1905-41. These come as PPT and are easily editable but ensure students constantly know where on there learning journey they are. Each separate journey includes inquiry questions, lesson headings, assessment information, and tips on how to challenge oneself further.
I hope they are of use to you and please do email me if you have any questions about this resource.
One of the main reasons for my department’s exam success is the detailed and focused set of revision menus I give to my students to help them prepare.
Now you can have them too.
Of all of my resources these revision menus are my must-haves!
I hope they can be of much use to your students as they are to mine. If you enjoyed this resource please leaf through my collection of other revision menus and resources.
This pack focuses on Russia from 1855-1924 and includes revision content for the following topics:
Does Alexander II deserve the title ‘Tsar Liberator’? √
How reactionary was the reign of Alexander III? √
How well did the Tsarist regime deal with the difficulties of ruling Russia c. 1900? √
What were the causes of the 1905 Revolution? √
How did the Tsar respond to the 1905 Revolution? √
Why did Russia do so badly in the First World War? √
Why was the Revolution of March 1917 successful? √
How effectively did the Provisional Government rule Russia in 1917? √
Why were the Bolsheviks able to seize power in November 1917? √
Why did the Bolsheviks win the Civil War? √
How did Lenin rule Russia? √
This lesson is pitched at high achieving secondary aged students (16+) and is an interpretation based lesson on Khrushchev. The lesson begins with clear differentiated learning objectives and a starter activity which invites students to question why this Soviet leader was not buried in the Kremlin Wall as with the others (he is buried in Novedivichy Cemetery in the south-west of Moscow - well worth a visit!). From here students work through background info on his rise to power before attempting the main task, a 29-piece evidence sort (with some images to spruce it up). These need to be broken down into those factors related to domestic policy (five year plan, Virgin Lands programme, abolition of MTS etc) and also foreign policy (not least Berlin, Cuba, and Hungary). Students then divide these into sub sections to ascertain if each was a triumph or failure for Khrushchev’s leadership. This can be a paired or individual task but the content is extremely precise and detailed and includes some perspectives (Thatcher Vs Taubman). There is also a differentiation version for students who need a bit more structure (colour coded). This will mean students effectively create a large essay map to answer the Key Question which I personally like to set as a homework. The class concludes with a thoughtful plenary in which students are invited to come up with a fitting statement for the tomb of this Soviet leader as well as a class vote on the Key Question.
I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as mine always do. I take real pleasure in providing resources to the awesome community of History teachers out there. If you have any questions please contact me.
This lesson explores how reactionary Alexander III was. Lesson objectives are differentiated and very clear and there is an interesting starter activity (about the ‘hippo’ statue of Alexander in St. Petersburg). The 52 page PPT proceeds to discuss the various changes Alexander made to Russia (economy, society, politics and opposition, Russification) and the class then have a two part main task. One is to create a speech as a particular character, and the second is to plot this on a graph to show which groups were repressed, like Jews, Poles, Zemstvos etc and which were doing well like the black clergy and Pobodonostev etc. The lesson concludes with a plenary in the form of ‘Have I Got News For You’ where students test their knowledge retrieval of what they have learned.
The lesson also comes with a set of ready-made student notes.
I hope you enjoy this lesson as much as my students do. It has been designed for high achieving post-16 students and is written in English, not US- English.
Please let me know if you have any questions and thanks so much for your interest in this lesson.
Have a great day fellow teachers!! Daniel
This lesson has clearly defined learning objectives and a starter activity which asks students to consider two very different historian’s perspectives on the reign of Alexander II. The 56-slide PowerPoint then provides very detailed information on the reforms Alexander put in place including the Emancipation Statute of 1861 before giving students a task of creating a mind map showing the positive and negative aspects of the reforms. There is a two part plenary - a fun DingBats exercise which goes over some of the key vocabulary - and a voting exercise based on the starter and main activity.
This lesson is pitched at high-achieving post-16 students and has been created by a UK teacher so is in English rather than American English.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions and I hope this lesson helps you deliver this fascinating topic!
Have a terrific day, Daniel
My IB students always do really well in their exams, especially on Paper 3 (Higher Level). One of the main reasons for this is the detailed and focused set of revision menus I give them to help them prepare for exam success. Now you can have them too.
Of all of my resources these revision menus are my must-haves!
I hope they can be of much use to your students as they are to mine. If you enjoyed this resource please leaf through my collection of other revision menus and resources.
This pack focuses on Russia from c. 1953-1991 and includes revision content for the following topics:
How successful was Khrushchev’s rule?
Was the USSR stagnant under Brezhnev?
Was Gorbachev the “gravedigger of Communism?”
How successful was the rule of Boris Yeltsin, 1991-1999?
This book features 11 high scoring IB essays for the Paper 3 topic Imperial Russia, revolution, and the establishment of the USSR 1855-1924.
Teachers – this book is for you if you have high-performing students asking what a good one looks like (WAGOLL). Set an essay and staple the corresponding exemplar to your students’ effort for instant assessment for learning. Included are over 70 annotations by an experienced IB examiner offering tips and tricks to improve your students’ Paper 3 technique. Don’t just tell them what to do, show them.
Students - this book features high-performance essays for popular IB examination questions from real past papers. You’ll learn great essay mechanics and clever ways to dazzle the examiners. Learn how to apply Q SPEND, write an introduction using the DCO technique, and use fancy words like panegyric, quixotic, potentate and more to make your essays stand out from the rest. What is ‘snowballing’ and how is an essay like a Grand Prix? Look at real examples of how to evaluate perspectives effectively. Discover how topic sentences can help you and how anecdotal evidence can add colour to your response. Are you guilty of post hoc ergo propter hoc? How can you ensure you are more conceptual and when exactly should you challenge the premise of a question? If you are a student achieving Level 6 but want to reach for the very top grade in IB History this book is for you.
Parents - this book will help you support your child to think critically and to produce deluxe essays.
Essays include:
To what extent do you agree that Alexander II was the Tsar Liberator? (May 2021)
“Alexander III was a political reactionary, but an economic moderniser.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? (November 2013)
How significant were the weaknesses of Russia by the end of the Nineteenth Century? (May 2008)
Discuss the causes of the 1905 Revolution in Russia. (November 2018)
How effectively did Nicholas II respond to the 1905 Revolution? (November 2005)
Why did Russia lose the First World War? (May 2003)
Discuss the reasons for the final crisis of autocracy in February/March 1917. (November 2019)
How effectively did the Provisional Government rule Russia in 1917? (November 2017)
Evaluate the reasons for the overthrow of the Provisional Government in October/November 1917. (May 2021)
Why did the Reds win the Russian Civil War, 1918-21? (November 2001)
“The Bolshevik state under Lenin between 1918 and 1924 was a ruthless dictatorship, caring little for the Russian people.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? (November 2008)
Daniel Guiney is a highly experienced IB teacher, examiner and assessment author. He has led highly successful History departments in the UK as well as Singapore, Egypt, and China.
In this 21-page PPT students are introduced to the events of 1066 with a short video activity. Lesson objectives are clear and graduated and there is detailed information about the Tapestry which runs through some key moments, including in note form. The main activity asks students to sequences the events in order by matching the heads and tails of the sentences. It also includes extension questions for more able students. The lesson concludes by asking students to evaluate which level they achieved in the lesson objectives.
I hope your students get as much from this lesson as mine do. It has been pitched to 11 year old students in mainstream settings.
This fully resourced lesson begins with two starter activities designed to introduce the topic. First students watch a short video clip about the first McDonalds in Pushkin Square and are asked to guess the price of a Big Mac in four countries in the early 1990s. Russia is by far the most expensive and this leads to a question of why. They then watch a second video clip which shows some of Yeltsin’s eccentricities and they are invited to offer three adjectives. Students then divide a page into four and there is detailed information for the teacher to run through describing economic successes/failures and political successes/failures. An overall crib sheet to summarise is provided also. The lesson concludes with two plenaries designed to test subject knowledge. A fun dingbats game focusing on some of the key words (shock therapy, Chicago school, depression etc) and a fill in the blanks Have I Got News for You style exercise. It is a PowerPoint with 75 slides.
I hope your students get as much from mine from this resource. If you have any questions please ask away and I wish you a wonderful day. This resource is written in English and is pitched at high achieving IB / A Level students.
In this very detailed lesson students have the opportunity to tackle on the of the greatest history mystery activities around! The lesson begins with a Power Point activity designed to captivate the class from the go and they view a short video outlining differences people have on this question. The class then work through a detailed set of background notes to enrich their knowledge before attempting a 26 piece evidence sort. The class work in pairs or individually to place each piece of evidence into a column - they are colour co-ordinated to differentiate where required - some evidence suggests the landings were real and others suggest they were a hoax. Once complete the class use this as a scaffold to write an answer to the question ‘did man really walk on the moon in 1969?’ before voting online in their plenary activity.
It really is a lesson (for high school students) which engineers original thought and allows students to discriminate between evidence to arrive at a well thought out conclusion. My students always find this a fascinating lesson and a great part of any Cold War unit or stand-alone activity. I hope yours enjoy it as much as mine do.
You can find alternatives on this site which address this question and which cost a tiny bit less but I don’t think they have the level of detail and precision as you will find here :-)
This lesson begins with a starter activity in which five factors are laid out on a pentagon for students to consider. These include the Wall Street Crash, Hitler’s personal appeal, propaganda, opponent’s mistakes, and fear of Communism. The class are then told they will revisit this in the plenary.
The 19-slide PPT then talks through teacher expo on each of the factors. The class then attempt a 30-piece hexagonal card sort activity. This is colour-co-ordinated for purposes of differentiation. More able students will draw links between factors.
The lesson concludes with a plenary in which they are invited to vote on the most significant factor.
I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as I know mine do.
Students are given one of the 26 different character cards ranging from Kaiser Wilhelm to Gavrilo Princip to lesser known players such as Leopold Lojka. Once students have got to know their character they then get into teams of fellow countrymen and attempt to find evidence to answer the question as to why the war began. There are 31 pieces of evidence for them to sift through, all greatly detailed and colour-coded for differentiation. This is one of the lessons I’m proudest of and it always leads to powerful debate (such as from those students pictured - they have placed the evidence around their tabards!) and empowers students with extremely high levels of subject knowledge from which to begin extended written responses to one of the biggest questions in History. I hope you enjoy it as much as my students do.
A very detailed set of notes with questions based on these which will cover the persecution of groups during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. This lesson also comes with an appropriate starter and plenary activity to ensure students understand this very important period of history. If you have any questions please let me know. Thank you.
This lesson will really get your students actively engaged. They begin by figuring out the anagrams of key terms and phrases from the course before working through a detailed set of notes on how China changed after the 1911 Revolution. From here students proceed to complete a 15 piece card sort, arranging them into social, political and economic impacts of Warlordism. Students then complete the lesson with a fun activity (Dingbats) designed to test how well they have understood the key vocabulary and events from the lesson.
This lesson was one I created and planned while teaching in China so I really invest as much precision in the historical detail as possible. I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine.