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Learning to teach history writing: discovering what works

Learning to teach history writing: discovering what works
Learning to teach history writing: discovering what works
Statistics indicated under achievement by 18-year old Advanced (A) level history students in a mixed comprehensive school, by comparison with their results in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) at 16. Further investigation highlighted a weakness in essay writing. A teaching strategy was developed to improve essay writing by (a) clarifying the purpose of essay writing; (b) enhancing essay structuring; (c) ensuring students obtained a firm understanding of the topics studied; and (d) providing students with appropriate study skills to enable them to work effectively. An action plan which drew heavily on the ideas of phenomenography (Hounsell, 1984, 1987), was devised to tackle these areas. The results of students who were taught in this way and who took their examinations in 1998 showed a dramatic improvement over the previous three years
history teaching, essay writing, sixth form teaching, action research
0965-0792
97-109
Harris, Richard J.
031704a4-abe8-4160-b268-e8266e7f54db
Foreman-Peck, Lorraine
886068bd-3cd7-4adb-ba78-60b9250e4c54
Harris, Richard J.
031704a4-abe8-4160-b268-e8266e7f54db
Foreman-Peck, Lorraine
886068bd-3cd7-4adb-ba78-60b9250e4c54

Harris, Richard J. and Foreman-Peck, Lorraine (2001) Learning to teach history writing: discovering what works. Educational Action Research, 9 (1), 97-109. (doi:10.1080/09650790100200141).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Statistics indicated under achievement by 18-year old Advanced (A) level history students in a mixed comprehensive school, by comparison with their results in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) at 16. Further investigation highlighted a weakness in essay writing. A teaching strategy was developed to improve essay writing by (a) clarifying the purpose of essay writing; (b) enhancing essay structuring; (c) ensuring students obtained a firm understanding of the topics studied; and (d) providing students with appropriate study skills to enable them to work effectively. An action plan which drew heavily on the ideas of phenomenography (Hounsell, 1984, 1987), was devised to tackle these areas. The results of students who were taught in this way and who took their examinations in 1998 showed a dramatic improvement over the previous three years

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More information

Published date: March 2001
Keywords: history teaching, essay writing, sixth form teaching, action research

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 12447
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/12447
ISSN: 0965-0792
PURE UUID: e55b6556-13ef-44c5-bf11-74565cdbc175

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Date deposited: 17 Nov 2004
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 05:05

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Contributors

Author: Richard J. Harris
Author: Lorraine Foreman-Peck

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