Shot at dawn - A free activity for Remembrance Day

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Image: Tinelot Wittermans

Many schools will be doing something special this year for Remembrance day - are you? This free activity is designed to honour the men who fought and died for our country, while also engaging students in a deep moral, historical and political debate.

In 2006, the British Defence Secretary, Des Browne, pardoned the soldiers who were executed for cowardice during World War I. The service of these men is now free to be honoured on Remembrance Day along with the many others who died during the fighting.

There are arguments for and against pardoning these men, and the complex and thorny issues surrounding the topic provide a useful opportunity for students to develop their debating skills and to practice writing to persuade/argue.

In this free activity, students use the text provided and their own research to write an argument either for or against pardoning the men who were executed for cowardice during WW1. The activity could also function as a letter-writing exercise, a class debate or a philosophical enquiry using the included text as a stimulus.

Older pupils may well be the same age as some of the executed soldiers, who, at only 15 or 16, lied about their age to join the army. This, along with wide-spread media focus on Remembrance Day, will make for a relevant and thought-provoking discussion.

You can download the activity resource pack for free here. It includes instructions for implementation and also the stimulus text.

This free activity is taken from our cross-curricular project plan, The Great War. You can purchase the rest of this project for £36.

Activities include:

• Plotting the path to war, examining each country's motives for joining in detail
• Identifying the purpose of propaganda and creating a propaganda poster
• Writing a poem about a gas attack in the trenches
• Investigating the impact of the armistice on Germany and the rest of Europe

...And much more!

See here for a full description of the project and its included activities and resources.

Less is more? Teaching students to summarise

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Summarising a piece of text is a skill that students will need time and time again throughout their school life and beyond. Help them develop this skill with these two simple activities to teach summarising skills to pupils of any age group.

Activity 1. 'In a nutshell...'

'In a nutshell...' requires students to read a story or piece of text of your choice and then retell it in 25 words. Once students have reduced the text to 25 words, they then reduce the summary to a three word headline.

The activity provides an opportunity for students to concentrate on the main ideas of a text. It demonstrates to pupils that recording small details can prompt them to remember a good deal of information. Pupils will also see the need to ignore unimportant information, and evaluate whether they have captured the gist of the text.

You can download this task's worksheet for free here.

Activity 2. Word Splash!

This activity requires you to select ten key words from the text you'd like your students to summarise. Give students a copy of the text, write the ten words up on the board and tell the pupils they are going to write a paragraph summarising the story. They must use all the words on the board.

A limit of words can be given, a paragraph of no more than 50 words to summarise the text, for example.

The Wordsplash activity is a great way to differentiate for students who might struggle with 'In a nutshell...'. It's not as challenging, as students have more words to summarise the story with and the support of the key words on the board, but it still helps focus students on capturing the main ideas of the text.

If you are a subscriber to our magazine, you'll recognise these activities from one of our recent project plans. They were created by the fabulous Jane Jones, who designs all of our spectacular cross curricular projects. Don't miss out - subscribe to Creative Teaching and Learning today!

Reading in roles - Collaborative reading task (with free resources!)

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Reading can often become a very isolated activity in the schools. Regular classroom reading sessions are great for getting kids in the habit of reading, but children are social creatures and too often, such sessions involve sitting in silence with a book the child may or may not find interesting. Not many skills being developed there!

Reading at GCSE level and beyond requires a range of skills. Students have to read for meaning (hidden or otherwise) and form opinions. They will have to question a text, summarise it, clarify it to themselves and the examiner, and even make predictions about what the text implies will happen next.

You don't have to wait until the students are studying GCSE English to teach these skills... you can start as early as primary school!

Ever heard of the reciprocal reading roles? 
If you're a subscriber to our magazine, you'll be familiar with this reading task as it's often featured in the free cross curricular project plan published with each issue.

The purpose of this activity is to encourage active thinking and reading through close examination of a text. This can be fiction, non-fiction, a short story, an extract from a novel, a historical account - anything you like!

This activity can be used by primary teachers in Years 3-6, and also in secondary schools, in years 7-9.

Here's how it works:

1. Split your class into groups of four (five, if absolutely necessary, but four is preferable).

2. Assign each student with the group a reading role. The roles are:

• SUMMARISER – Think beyond what actually happens in the text. Identify the three most important events/details. Why are they important? Are they connected in any way?
• QUESTIONER – Pose at least three questions which look at the text in depth. Try to ask open, challenging questions. Address confusions that will encourage thought and provoke discussion. 
• CLARIFIER – Make a note of any words or phrases that will need to be checked. Are there any ideas or issues that need to be clarified to make the reading clear and easy to understand? To help to clarify, can you think of any ways that this section links with other sections and what you already know? 
• PREDICTOR – Identify at least three text-related predictions, based on how your response to the text is developing. This will help your group to articulate what will happen next.

If there is a fifth group member, he or she becomes the group director, ensuring all the roles are undertaken conscientiously in the group.

3. Hand out the reading roles cards (these can be downloaded from our website here). These explain what each role entails in more detail. They will need to be cut out, beforehand if more convenient, and folded so they stand like place names. The tabs on the outer edges can be folded inwards to increase stability.

4. Each group member reads through the text from their assigned perspective. They work independently, taking responsibility for their own role, but in a collaborative way, discussing their findings with the group and making links between each role.

5. Students record their findings by contributing to the group record sheet (download this here). This grid can be photocopied at the end and distributed to each member for a permanent record.

You can download an alternative collection sheet here. This splits the main aspects of the text down into sections (i.e. key people, actions, locations, links). Students can then categorise their summary/clarifications/questions/prediction according to each area.

You many need to spend some time beforehand explaining the reciprocal reading roles to your students, but it won't be long before they've gotten the hang of it! This activity can be used over and over again, as students take on different roles and develop a wide range of reading skills, ready for use later on in their schooling.

This activity was designed by Jane Jones. Jane creates the cross curricular projects included for free with each issue of Creative Teaching and Learning magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine here.

Interested in our cross curricular projects?

Subscribers to Creative Teaching and Learning can access all our cross curricular projects for free. If you're not a subscriber, don't panic! You can purchase the projects for £36 each, no subscription required.

Projects available for purchase include:

• The Princes in the Tower - A historical investigation

• Investigating local history

• Mysteries of the Middle Ages

• World War II

• The Titanic
• The Olympics
• Tutankhamun and the Ancient Egyptians