Britain 1750-1900

At Ashfield School, Kirby in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, students wrote Industrial Revolution novels this year.  The history department ran this as a competition and published the stories. Gary Hillyard and the history department have successfully adapted the techniques described in Write Your Own Roman Story to the different period.

Below are their lesson titles and aims, and some of what the students did. These give a flavour of what went on.

1. What was the Industrial Revolution?
To introduce students to what the Industrial Revolution was.
To set the historical boundaries for their own stories.

2. How did towns change during the Industrial Revolution?
To find out a little about four of the towns that changed dramatically during the Industrial Revolution.
To use the Internet to find information.

3. Preparing to write your story – setting.
To introduce the main task of this unit.
To understand how authors use setting to tell their story.
Students to highlight alliteration, verbs, making the factory sound like an animal, and repetition in an extract from Hard Times.

4. Preparing your story – setting
To understand how writers use historical scenes to make their stories colourful.
Students write a description of the street as if they were Oliver in film of the book.  They must describe what they see, hear and smell in as much detail as possible, as if they were really there.

5. Preparing your story – setting
To think about how writers use setting to help them tell their story.

6 &7. Preparing your story – researching where the action takes place.
To encourage students to decide where they are going to set their story.
To research what it would have been like in their settings.

8. Preparing your story – Characters
To introduce to students the gingerbreading technique for creating characters.
To look at how authors make their characters interesting.

9 & 10. Preparing your story – researching characters
To research the different types of people who you want to appear in your story.
Students create gingerbreads of 3 characters from the following: - factory owner, working class child, policeman, criminal, overlooker, nightsoilsman, doctor to the poor.

11. Preparing your story – Plots
To begin to think about how your story is going to be structured.
To choose a plot for your story.
To storyboard what will happen in your story.

12. Preparing your story – openings and endings
To think about how writers hook their readers into a book and build up to an end.

13. Preparing your story – dialogue
To think about how the characters in your story will interact with each other.
Students explore Philip Pullman’s technique in an extract from Ruby in the Smoke.

14. Preparing your story – first person narrative
To introduce students to what first person narrative is.
To recap on what is needed for their stories.
Students explore Pip’s opening words in Great Expectations.

15. Preparing your story – Story Recipe
To plan the content of your story.
To make sure that your stories contain some historical facts

16. Story Drafts –Evaluation
To evaluate each other’s work constructively.
To evaluate the unit constructively.

Gary and his colleagues used the technique of taking extracts from published historical fiction and helping students to explore the writers’ techniques. Students were then expected to use the same techniques in their own writing. The titles used were

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, (The Nonesuch Press, 2005).

Charles Dickens, Hard Times, (The Nonesuch Press, 2005).

Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, (Penguin, 1997).

Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, (Penguin, 1995).

Livi Michael, The Whispering Road, (Puffin, 2005).

Philip Pullman, The Ruby in the Smoke, (Scholastic, 2004).

Sue Reid, Mill Girl: The Diary of Eliza Helsted, Manchester 1842-43, (Scholastic, 2002).

Book Reviews

Rebel Cargo, James Riordan (Frances Lincoln Publishers, 2007) NEW TITLE

In this book, set circa 1735, the author brings together two stories; that of Abena a rebellious Ashanti girl sold into slavery and enduring the middle passage from West Africa to Jamaica; and Mungo, a Portsmouth orphan, and sometime mudlark (see Mudlarks by John Sedden, the author James Riordan lives in Portsmouth) who becomes a cabin boy, only to be kidnapped and sold as a white slave. Fate brings the two together and close to death on a plantation in Jamaica. Throughout the story slavery is treated as a callous and brutal trade with little respect for human life and violent punishments. The book avoids the temptation of a happy ending and will pose questions of morality and justice for the students who read it. It also offers some writer’s devices for students to learn from, for example a succinct description of Mungo’s work in a Portsmouth tavern utilising alliteration.

Slops, sweeping, serving, skivvying came first and last.

For history teachers, along perhaps with Copper Sun below, it offers a dramatic contrast on plantation life to the claims of the microhistorians R. Fogel and S. Engerman in their study of the subject, Time on the Cross: the Economics of American Negro Slavery (1974). For an explanation of how one school did this see the article by Kate Hammond, 'Teaching Year 9 about historical theories and methods’ in Teaching History No 128, (Historical Association, September 2007).

 

Under the Hawthorn Tree, Marita Conlon-McKenna (O'Brien Press).

This is the first of an award-winning trilogy, a gripping story of love, loyalty and courage set in the time when Ireland was devastated by the Great Famine of the 1840s. Three children, Eily, Michael and Peggy, are left to fend for themselves. Starving and in danger of the dreaded workhouse, they escape in the hope of finding the great-aunts they have heard about in their mother's stories - a journey that will test every reserve of strength, love and loyalty they possess.


The Hungry Wind, Soinbhe Lally (Poolbeg Press).

The novel is a starkly realistic account of the impact and consequences of the famine on the family of Marya and Breege from workhouse to Australia. It is unusual in that much of the story is set in a workhouse and issues of abuse and exploitation are confronted. Though the grief is ever present, it is also a story of hope and survival of the human spirit.

Secrets of the Fearless, Elizabeth Laird (Macmillan, 2005).

Twelve year old John Barr is the hero of an adventure that begins on board the warship HMS The Fearless during the Napoleonic Wars and which then moves to a mission in France.

 

Powder Monkey, Paul Dowswell (Bloomsbury, 2005).

Sam wants to leave his sleepy Norfolk village and see the world. He seizes the chance to crew a merchant ship but soon discovers the harsh realities of life at sea. His ship is attacked by a Spanish privateer but rescued by the Royal Navy. Sam finds himself press-ganged into the navy as a powder monkey, to serve in the war with France and Spain. Described by one reviewer as "amazingly well-researched".

 

Battle Fleet , Paul Dowswell (Bloomsbury, 2007).NEW TITLE

Sam Witchall's story continues with his return from Australia via pirate attack and storms. After an interlude in London he joins Nelson's flagship HMS Victory as a midshipman, on course for Traflagar. Once again the author has produced a fast moving, action packed adventure story in the tradition of C. S. Forester. This will grip pupils and prompt some thinking on the nature of war.

 

Copper Sun, Sharon Draper (Bookpage, 2006).

The title comes from a Countee Cullen poem and the author is the granddaughter of a slave. Her book describes 15-year-old Amari's capture and life as a slave in 1738. Described by one reviewer as a "well-researched, intense and often shocking novel".