After studying a complex topic, challenge students to turn it into an illustrated storybook that can be understood by primary school students. Spend time in class talking through the main concepts, events and personalities that should be covered in a brief story. Consider too which images could be used to bring the subject to life.

In themselves these books can be useful revision aids, and could be peer-assessed. Even better however is to actually read them to students in a local primary school.

I use this technique successfully in two major projects:

• Henry VIII – Hero or Villain?
  • In this exercise, Year 8 historians produce biased storybooks about Henry VIII. Half the class produce ‘positive’ books, half produce ‘negative’ books. In a subsequent lesson, different Year 5 students hear one ‘positive’ story and then one ‘negative’ story before completing a ‘wheel of life’ about Henry VIII where they try to reach a synthesis judgement.

Biased storybooks about Henry VIII (“Hero or Villain?”)

• How did Hitler become Chancellor of Germany?
  • After completing a detailed investigation of the causes of Hitler’s rise to power, students produce a ‘Mr. Men’ storybook which they read to Year 6 students. In this exercise, the Year 6 students have an accompanying worksheet where their teams get points for correctly interpreting the different metaphors correctly.

Reading “Rise of Hitler Mr. Men” books (Year 11 > Year 6)

A measure of how good this technique is can be gleaned from the fact that the former UK education secretary Michael Gove thinks this approach is rubbish.

A great way to get students familiar with the key events of a historical person’s life and consider concepts of significance.

Stage 1: Start by outlining the central task 

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• You are a Hollywood director producing a film about [person / topic].
• You will produce a poster advertising your film, including:
  • – A dramatic title for the film
  • – 4 “Screenshots” from the film depicting the key events
  • – Captions under each screenshot describing the events
  • – A cast list
  • – Some quotes from the film reviewers!
  • – Some ‘tie-in’ merchandise relevant to the topic

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Provide students with a timeline of events. Read it through as a class then each student circles off four events that they think will work particularly well on the cinema screen. The example shown here comes from my Unit on Martin Luther at www.activehistory.co.uk.

Stage 2: Completing the movie proposal form

The students are then provided with the Hollywood Film Poster: Proposal Form, which guides them through the following questions:

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• What will be the title / strapline of your film? (decide whether you want to depict the main character as a hero or a villain. Discuss as a class first some famous film titles).
• What 4 events will you choose to focus on? (aim for different moods: drama, suspense, humour, violence, romance…)
• Choose 5 people from the timeline: Which famous actors would you use to play each of these characters?
• What sorts of reviews would you include?
• What sort of merchandise could you advertise as a ‘tie-in’ promotion?

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Stage 3 [optional]: Developing the cast list

Provide the students with a copy of a PowerPoint template with the main characters listed in it, and space for them to put alongside their choice of actors. From my experience this works well as a homework exercise and they always have great fun sharing these ideas afterwards:

Stage 4: Producing the poster

At this stage the students are ready to produce the poster using the Mark Scheme Template.

Taking it further

Some students might want to create an actual movie trailer rather than a poster (see the example above!)

Downloads:

Hollywood Film Poster: Proposal Form

Hollywood Film Poster: Mark Scheme