We often talk about historical thinking on the site but what about historical writing. How do you help children to write as a historian. Obviously there is the opportunity to model a few sentences to show the type of style expected e.g. passive voice. But we also need to acquaint pupils with a range of words and phrases commonly used by historians that they can draw from when doing their own writing. A glossary of terms would only go so far though and would not touch the level of precision required. As most written tasks we advocate involved answering a question, we need first to look at the disciplinary concept that lies behind the question. When we’ve done that we then need to give the pupils one of the historian’s palettes in the hope that it will encourage them to adopt some of their specialist language.
