Learning Objectives:

• To recognise that not all aspects of the Elizabethan age were conducive to life in the 1950s.
• To appreciate that the 1950s interpretation of the Elizabethan age was highly selective.
• To explain at least one reason why this interpretation of the old Elizabethans was so selective.

 

 

Possible Teaching Objectives

• Ask pupils the question, ‘If you were in the 1950s, what aspects of the Elizabethan age would most appeal to you?' Encourage them to think about what life was like for the British living in the early 1950s.
• Study the old Elizabethan cards once more and ask pupils to select four cards that someone in 1953 might choose to highlight when thinking of what they would like to remember about the old Elizabethans (e.g. Would they choose to remember the slavery? The trade? The peace and calm? The brave adventurous explorers?).
• What aspects of the old Elizabethan age would the British of the 1950s have definitely chosen not to remember when calling themselves the ‘new Elizabethans'? Why?
• Introduce the final activity of the enquiry. Pupils are to produce a 1953 coronation mug celebrating the new Elizabethan Age. On one side of the mug will be three images from the 1940s or ‘50s that the new Elizabethans would like to celebrate. Pupils must be able to explain why the new Elizabethans might have chosen these images.
• On the reverse side will be three images from the first Elizabethan age. These must be images that someone in 1953 would choose to remember and would want the country to imitate. Again pupils should explain why these three images would have been chosen by the new Elizabethans. Stress the most important part is not choosing the image or describing what it is but explaining why the new Elizabethans would want to remember it.
• Pupils should have begun to link the Elizabethan age to the thinking of the 1950s.
• They should also have identified those aspects of the Elizabethan age that people in the 1950s would have felt some affinity for. Most will be able to explain why that affinity existed.
• Pupils should begin to think what aspects of the 1940s and 1950s people would most want to link to the Elizabethan age.
• It is worth doing this activity on paper in rough for pupils to take into the ICT suite. This will ensure they have ideas already and are not trying to think of everything when they sit down in front of the computer screen.
• It is worth modelling a poor example of the final activity and invite pupils to improve on it. For example, an image of Edmund Hillary on Everest could be accompanied by the text, ‘Hillary in 1953 was the first man to climb Everest.' This clearly does not explain why this image is on the mug. What are the new Elizabethans so proud of?
• Likewise, the reverse side could have an image of Sir Francis Drake with the text, ‘Drake was the first Englishman to sail around the world.' This does not explain why the new Elizabethans would have chosen this image. The new Elizabethans would choose to remember this because they hoped that they too would be brave and adventurous. They needed heroes to give them hope since Britain was just coming out of the dark war years and needed cheering up.'
• A brief discussion of how one might use the religion cards could help pupils to see the link between peace and tranquillity after the war years and the Elizabethan religious settlement after the years of religious upheaval.

 

Learning outcomes:

• Pupils select images from the 1940s and 1950s to link with old Elizabethan images.
• Pupils prepare a design for a coronation mug with appropriate wording.

 

Resources:

• Blank 1953 coronation mug template.
  See attachment below: Resource 5
• Example of partly complete 1953 coronation mug template.
  See attachment below: Resource 6