Get students familiar with the key events and significance of a topic by conceptualizing with a Hollywood Film.

• Stage 1: Outline the Central Task
  • Provide students with key events/facts on the topic (Have them research the info)
• Stage 2: Movie Proposal Form
  • What is the title?
  • Choose 5 events to focus on (Connect and Categorize by genre)
  • Choose 5 people from your information - What famous actors would you use to play each of these characters and why?
  • What sorts of reviews could you include?
  • What sort of merchandise could you advertise as a ‘tie-in’ promotion?
• Stage 3: Produce the Poster
  • Poster or movie trailer

The Hexagon approach involves providing students with key pieces of information on hexagons. Their job is to organize these into categories of their choice, with hexagons being placed adjacent to each other to highlight links between them.

Any topic that focuses on changing fortunes over time could adopt this approach which uses a large bag of sweets to represent a key theme being measured.

Ex. Rise of Hitler - sweets represent ‘support’ (groups & individuals from 1929 onwards for the Nazi party).

To ensure that each student is able to contribute effectively and independently during a group task - give each a role. Provide students with role cards that lay out their job throughout the discussion. Roles include:

• Creative Risk-taker
• Co-Ordinator
• Elaborator
• Researcher
• Secretary
• Timekeeper
• Presenter

Students are given (or produce) essential pieces of information which they arrange in order or significance, success or status in a diamond diagram. Examples of use:

• Evidence that a particular individual deeserves to be regared as a hero or a villain
• Most important to least important reasons for Abolitionism
• Outcomes of a major government decision (dropping of the atomic bombs, Treaty of Versailles, etc.)

To help students decide how important a factor was in causing a particular event, ask them to consider whether events would have turned out differently without it.

1. Provide students with actual information (a narrative, article, text, etc.)
2. Have students analyze the document to identify key factors
3. Students will construct counterfactual statements to the key factors
4. Teacher will frame questions for consideration - really get students to consider how history would be different should these factors not have taken place.
5. Reflect and feedback.

Instead of presentations have students engage each other with some sort of activity, task or exercise to teach the class about a topic. Have them become the teacher, not just the presenter.

Have students take a concept/topic and transform their information into a children's book. Discuss as a class the main concepts, events, personalities that could be included in their story, along with images and metaphors that apply to the content.