The 5th Grade teacher on this website uses 'Voicethread' with historical photographs. Click on the video "Ellis Island" to see how primary students build a historical narrative around a visual image. Voice thread transforms media into collaborative spaces with video, voice, and text commenting.
Don't underestimate the importance of historical language in developing historical understanding. Provide opportunities for students to expand their historical vocabulary and to use language for a variety of purposes.
Young students need explicit instructions for when and how to use conventions of language.
Husbands (1996) identifies different types of historical language including:
1. The language of the past (e.g. convict, First Fleet, monarchy, revolution)
2. The language of historical time (century, period, modern, decade)
3. The language of historical processes (cause, chronology, similarity, difference)
4. The language of historical description and analysis (revolution, monarchy, democracy)
Use 'Word Walls' or word charts to help students keep track of information and terminology that is used in a Unit of Work and keep adding new words.
Beyond 1914 — The University of Sydney and the Great War is an extensive, searchable database of biographies and archival information about members of the University community involved in the First World War.
Built on the legacy of information provided to the University between 1915 and 1938 by more than 2000 former staff, students, graduates and their families (later published in the University’s Book of Remembrance), Beyond 1914 features insights into the lives of these men and women before, during and after the war.
This short film takes you behind-the-scenes at the University Archives. It explains how the Book of Remembrance was created back in 1939 and reveals just a handful of the thousands of stories that can now be found on Beyond 1914.