In this article Kerry Apps introduces students to the significance of the witch-hunts in the modern era, at the time when they occurred, and in the middle of the eighteenth century. She presents her rationale for choosing the witch-hunts as a focus for the study of significance, and shows how her thinking about her teaching has evolved through her evaluation of her students’ learning, and her own re-teaching, over time. 

At the heart of this article is a character-based activity based on a real witch-hunt from 1651 Massachusetts, which brings home to students the nature of accusations of witchcraft during the seventeenth century.