November: Site update, Armistice and a Netflix drama
Sunday 8 November 2020
It has been an interesting month, with many of us facing new lockdown restrictions and also occupied by the tensions and the excitement of the US election.
However, as ever, we have continued updating the site with new materials, activities and resources!
New Resources on this site
Our site continues to grow rapidly!
New Topic
In the last couple of months we have added a new Topic for Paper 2: Topic 8, Independence Movements - with Ghana and India as case studies.
Updates to existing topics
We have also added more content to the Paper 3 (Europe region), Topic 14 - European states in the interwar Years. Because of this we have now split the page on Hitler and Nazi Germany into Part I and Part II. We plan to add extra content to the other pages in this Topic over the next month.
More quizzes:
We are also continuing to add to our quizzes, both 'paper' quizzes that you can download to give to students, and also the interactive online ones that students can do directly on the site.
And, as promised, we are continuing to develop our Spanish resources. Topic 10 for Paper 2 is now up with Castro and Hitler as the case studies.
Anniversaries
We have discussed Armistice Day several times in these blogs, and the opportunity that this gives for History IB students to play a role in explaining to the rest of your school the significance of this event.
I’ve used Siegfried Sassoon’s poem Aftermath at several Remembrance Assemblies; students can read it out - or this version by Jeremy Irons is very moving.
(This excerpt comes from Episode 7 of 'The Great War, 1914 to 1918' which deals with the impact the war, including responses to the horror such as Käthe Kollwitz' statue shown above. The link and ATL for this video can be found here: 3. First World War: Effects (ATL)
The BBC site also has Assembly resources that can be used:
Armistice Day Resources (BBC)
A collection of content to use with Primary and Secondary pupils to mark Armistice Day.
New books
The Great Imperial Hangover by Samir Puri looks at how Empires shape the world we live in now.
This was the summary in the Financial Times:
A lecturer at King’s College, London and a former UK diplomat, Puri has many penetrating insights into the way the legacies of empire still affect the behaviour of states and the international climate. His book looks in turn at the US, Britain, the EU, Russia, China, India, the Middle East and Africa. He is particularly good on what he calls “the tragedy of America’s informal empire”
Another topical issue is addressed in The Brutish Museums which discusses the issue of whether museums should return treasures plundered from other countries during the 19th Century. The author, Dan Hicks' answer to this question is crystal clear - all objects should be returned from where they were 'stolen'. Hicks' focus is on Britain and on the kingdom of Benin, now located in modern Nigeria.
Also not to be missed..
Untold Killing
This is a new podcast on the Srebrenica massacre.
The Trial of the Chicago Seven
For those of your teaching US civil rights and social movements, the Netflix drama The Trial of the Chicago Seven is a must-see for your students. It covers the events surrounding the arrest and trial of the student leaders following the Chicago riots of 1968. Great for highlighting the issues that the students were protesting, and great drama.