Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer … well, spring really
By the publication of the first book
In our new A level series.
Mmmm. Possibly not rivalling Shakespeare but hopefully useful to teachers far and wide. With the publication of the first book in a new series we realize how hard we’ve been paddling for the last three years to reach this point. From first thinking to finding authors to approving individual book plans to identifying academic consultants to editing and rewrites and, yes, more rewrites and now – a book. And there’s only another twelve in the pipeline from “nearly–published next off the assembly” line to first drafts.
So, as you may have read in an earlier blog, we are aiming to do something different – create readable, challenging, up-to-date with modern scholarship books that focus on the history and on developing students’ skills as independent learners. Each chapter is an enquiry with an overarching activity set up at the beginning, guiding students through the chapter so they can be confident of reaching a well-evidenced conclusion. These can be used at home, individually or with friends or they can be used in the classroom, supported by the teachers’ resources that are available FREE here on the SHP site.
The first book out is The Wars of the Roses and you can get a preview of what a chapter looks like here
This is a whole sample chapter – look out for the Enquiry Focus panel on p.117, the blue boxes helping students build their answers to the overarching activity, use of colour to help students make sense of family trees,
You don’t do The Wars of the Roses – well, look anyway as it may provide ideas for teaching and show what to expect in later books in the series. Later this year we’ll publish
- The Russian Revolution by Christopher Culpin – on schedule for publication in May
- The Crusades by Jamie Byrom and Michael Riley
- The French Revolution by Dave Martin.
For more on the approach of the series as a whole click here.
And for those of you who do teach The Wars of the Roses – or who are tempted to do so – keep an eye on the Thinkinghistory website over the summer where I’ll be adding new resources for teaching this most fascinating of topics.
Ian
