Learning objectives

• To familiarise themselves with a variety of information from the Elizabethan age.
• To identify key aspects of the Elizabethan age.
• To organise these aspects under different headings.
• To explain why some aspects are negative and others positive.
• Some will also be able to differentiate between contemporary opinions and present day views of positive and negative features of a period.

 

Possible teaching objectives

• Introduce the key question for these activities "Was the first Elizabethan age a golden age?" and display the 1588 Armada Portrait using the link to the National Gallery website in the resources column.
• Move to the word golden on the board. Ask "What does it make you think of?"
• From the resources column download copies of Elizabethan cards adding appropriate brightly coloured illustrations.
• Hand out envelope containing the cards.
• Pupils should spend time familiarising themselves with them by arranging them in groups of their own choosing. They could write headings on a large piece of sugar paper and group the cards together under them.
• As a whole class, ask for a few suggested headings. Ask other pupils to guess which card a group may have put under the heading X or the heading Y.
• Give them the headings, Religion, Exploration, Money, Punishment and rearrange the cards accordingly.
• Then ask pupils to arrange the cards into three columns, Positive cards, Negative cards, Could be Positive or Negative depending on how you explained them. Encourage them to think about the third category and discuss. The card sorting activity can be repeated for as long as pupils are engaged. It is more important that pupils discuss the task but do not finish it, than finish it in seconds but have not really engaged in a meaningful and thoughtful discussion. Sometimes a higher ability pupil might qualify whether a card is to be viewed from a 16th Century or contemporary perspective (the John Hawkins slave trade card is a good examples of this. Would Elizabethans have felt this was negative? On the other hand it is difficult to think that modern pupils would argue that slavery is a positive aspect of the Elizabethan age (encourage this high order thinking if it emerges).
• Discuss the question, ‘Was the first Elizabethan age a golden age?'
• Encourage pupils to think whether all Elizabethans would have thought it was a golden age (the poor? actors? Africans?).

 

Learning outcomes

• Pupils will have explored the meaning of the word ‘golden' when describing an historical period. This is in itself an interpretation of that period using very selective evidence to support the view.
• They will have gained an overview of the Elizabethan period with key people, events and trends.
• Pupils should have organised this information into useful headings and then explained their rationale for selecting some images and not others.
• They will have discussed what aspects of Elizabethan life were positive and which were negative. The nature and limitations of these terms will also have been discussed.

 

Resources:

• A set of Elizabethan cards (add appropriate contemporary images to illustrate each).
  See attachment below: Resource 4
• 1588 Armada portrait of Elizabeth I at: http://www.npg.org.uk/