Guided Reading History Challenge! SPEARS
All are available at www.wolseyacademy.com/reading
This is one Guided Reading Activity from a set of 24 that makes up 4 separate guided reading challenges designed for 4 year groups in KS3 and 4. Each extract is from one of the SPEARS topics (Social, Political, Economic, Armed Conflict, Religious and Science).
Guided Reading is an activity in which students are given an extract (2-4 pages-ish) from a real history book. They have to read through it and annotate it, with a ‘subtitle’ and 1-2 bullet points of key details of each paragraph. At the end there is space for students to write a summary of their learning from the extract.
The extracts are as follows:
Year/Grade 7:
Social – Women in Roman Society – Mary Beard, SPQR (article)
Political – Norman Control of England – Marc Morris, The Norman Conquest
Economics – Aksum Empire – Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa (article)
Armed Conflict - Battle of Hastings – Marc Morris, Anglo-Saxons
Religious – Islamic Medicine – Firas Alkhateeb, Lost Islamic History (article)
Science – Black Death Contagion Theories – Benedict Gummer, The Scourging Angel
Year/Grade 8:
Social – Poverty & Marriage in Industrial Britain – Emma Griffen, Liberty’s Dawn
Political – Peterloo Massacre – E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (article)
Economic – The Great Exhibition – Ben Wilson, Heyday
Armed Conflict – East Indian Company & Sepoys – William Dalrymple, Anarchy
Religious – Christianity in The New World – Mark Steward, Great Expeditions
Science – Chicago and the Mid-West – William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis,
Year/Grade 9:
Social – Migration to Britain – Sathnam Sanghera, Empireland
Politics – The Rise of Stalin – Frank Dikotter, Dictators
Economic – The Rise of Germany – Katja Hoyer, Blood and Iron
Armed Conflict – Japan’s invasion of China – Rana Mitter, China’s War with Japan
Religious – Indian Partition – Barney White-Spunner, Partition
Science – Naval Technology – Robert Masse, Dreadnought.
KS4/Senior School
Social – Youth in Nazi Germany – Julia Boyd, A Village in the Third Reich
Politics – USA and post war Europe – Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War
Economics – Inflation ion Weimar Germany – Richard J Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich
Armed Conflict – Rolling Thunder – Max Hastings, Vietnam
Religious – USSR and Religion – Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin.
Science – A Bomb Development – Pap Ndiaye, Nylon and Bombs
Download them all at once at www.wolseyacademy.com/reading
Wolsey Academy is a non-profit, with every penny we make from the sale of resources going to one of our charity partners (Detailed at www.wolseyacademy.com/mission).
If you have yet to hear of us, please do visit our site and try the free-to-play and study Medieval Free Roaming RPG games which students find brilliantly engaging and spice up your lessons/homework activities.
Hope it helps.

