Year 8 History essentials
This resource has been designed to support the teaching of History for this year level.
The resource is organised into the following sections:
►► Overview of the year
►► Units of work
►► Historical knowledge
►► Historical understanding
►► Historical skills
►► Connections to the Australian Curriculum: English and literacy
Overview of the year — The ancient to the modern world
The Year 8 curriculum provides a study of history from the end of the ancient period to the beginning
of the modern period, c.650 AD (CE) to 1750. This was when major civilisations around the world
came into contact with each other. Social, economic, religious and political beliefs were often
challenged and significantly changed. It was the period when the modern world began to take shape.
Units of work
Depth study 1 — Medieval Europe (c.590 – c.1500) (18 lessons)
Depth study 2 — Japan under the shoguns (c.794 – 1867) (16 lessons)
Depth study 3 — Spanish conquest of the Americas (c.1492 – c.1572) (16 lessons)
Historical knowledge
Historical knowledge required for this year
Depth study 1 — Medieval Europe (c.590 – c.1500)
•
the decline of the Roman Empire
•
changes in European medieval society during the transition from the ancient to the modern
world, including the spread of Christianity and Islam
•
the features of the feudal system and manorialism, including the roles and relationships of
different groups in society
•
social, cultural and economic features of life in Medieval Europe
•
key changes in the criminal justice system in Medieval England
•
the power of the Catholic Church in medieval society and its influence on beliefs and values
•
the Crusades, including the motives and actions of significant participants, changing relations
between Islam and the West, and the significance of the Crusades in bringing about change in
medieval society
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Depth study 2 — Japan under the shoguns (c.794–1867)
•
the social, economic and political features of shogunate Japan and how they affected the way of
life
•
the way of life of significant individuals and groups living within a feudal structure
•
significant cultural developments and beliefs and values in shogunate Japan
•
the role of the Tokugawa Shogunate in re-imposing a feudal system and increasing control over
foreign trade
•
consequences of the overuse of environmental resources in shogunate Japan and the forestry
and land-use problems of the Tokugawa Shogunate
•
reasons for the decline of the shogunate
Depth study 3 — The Spanish conquest of the Americas (c.1492 – c.1572)
•
causes and effects of events and developments in the Age of Exploration
•
reasons for changes to European trade routes from the 15th and 16th centuries
•
reasons for Spanish exploration in the New World
•
significant events in the Spanish exploration of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries
•
social organisation, city life and beliefs of pre-Columbian life in the Americas
•
the nature of interactions between the Spanish and indigenous peoples from different
perspectives
•
the nature and the impact of the Columbian Exchange on the Old World and the New World,
such as the introduction of new diseases, horses and gunpowder in the Americas, and new foods
and increased wealth in Europe
•
the nature of Spanish rule in the Americas and its effects on indigenous peoples
•
the longer term effects of Spanish colonisation, including slavery, population changes and lack of
control over resources.
Historical understanding
Information about the key concepts is found in supporting learning resources related to each
concept.
Ideas for teaching key concepts to develop historical understanding for this year
Evidence
See the supporting learning resource Evidence for more information.
•
Make a list of possible sources that might provide evidence to a historian for a specific inquiry.
Include primary and secondary sources in the list, as well as a range of physical, written, visual
and oral sources. Suggest the kinds of evidence that might be found in each source.
•
Develop inquiry questions based on an artefact or group of artefacts.
•
After evidence is located in sources, develop new inquiry questions based on that evidence and
reinvestigate the source for evidence to answer the new questions.
•
Sequence images, such as photographs or cartoons, in chronological order and locate
information in them to use as evidence to answer specific inquiry questions.
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•
Interrogate secondary sources in the same way that primary sources are interrogated.
•
Suggest where there are holes in the evidence needed to answer an inquiry question. What
cannot be answered by a source?
•
Locate where in a source a piece of evidence, identified by the teacher, can be found, that is:
How do you know …?
•
Develop criteria to assess the reliability and useability of a source. Develop a graphic organiser
to record this information.
•
Provide scaffolding to assist in the comprehension of written sources. Students may need to be
referred to the unit glossary or be provided with a ‘plain English’ version of more complex texts.
Alternatively, provide difficult written sources with an in-text glossary, with synonyms inserted in
the text, in brackets, to show that the inserted text is not part of the original text.
Continuity and change
See the supporting learning resource Continuity and change for more information.
•
Sequence sources in chronological order to identify continuities and changes, as well as patterns
of continuity and change.
•
Identify turning points.
•
Create museum displays of physical sources that demonstrate continuities and changes.
•
Identify the causes and effects of changes.
•
Explicitly teach language that can be used to describe and explain continuity and change.
Cause and effect
See the supporting learning resource Cause and effect for more information.
•
Match a set of causes to a set of effects. Arrange the list chronologically.
•
Explain causes and effects of an event by considering the motivations of a participant involved in
the event and the impacts of the event, both intended and unintended.
•
Classify causes as religious, economic, political, environmental, technological, social or cultural.
•
Sort a set of causes and effects into important/relevant and unimportant/irrelevant.
•
Classify causes and effects as short or long term.
•
Rank a set of causes, or effects, in order of importance.
Teachers
•
Ask why an event happened and rephrase the response so it becomes a new ‘Why’ question, to
establish root causes of events or developments.
Perspective
See the supporting learning resource Perspective for more information.
•
Create a timeline of events, annotated with perspectives from different participants.
•
Create a propaganda poster.
•
Describe a participant in an event from the perspective of a different participant.
•
Debate the plausibility of different perspectives, using evidence from sources to support
arguments.
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•
Analyse representations of popular culture from the past, as in films and novels, to determine
their accuracy. Play ‘Spot the anachronism’ by identifying modern-day perspectives on past
events in secondary sources.
Empathy
See the supporting learning resource Empathy for more information.
The teaching of empathy should be grounded in evidence from sources to avoid ‘presentism’ — the
imposition of present-day attitudes and values on the past.
•
Create letters, diary entries, posters, illustrations and comic strips with speech bubbles, written
from the perspectives of people at the time.
•
Use a graphic organiser to compare different perspectives in contradictory sources.
•
Explain how a source, such as a propaganda poster, would have been viewed by different people
at the time by making reference to beliefs and values at the time.
•
Create a Y chart (indicating what an event or location would have looked like, sounded like and
smelled like) for different people in the past.
•
Compare features of life in the present and the past.
Teachers
•
Use literature, film and drama to introduce an event, its context and chronology before choosing
participants or characters who represent different points of view. Students can then explain why
people behaved the way they did.
•
Create a graphic organiser in which actions of individuals in the past can be analysed in terms of
beliefs and values.
Significance
See the supporting learning resource Significance for more information.
•
Sort a series of events marked on cards in chronological order, according to cause and effect,
and by significance.
•
Select the ‘most significant’ person, event, development or movement from a list and justify that
choice or list a series of historical events in order of priority and justify the choices made.
•
Describe events or developments by explaining the reason for their importance.
•
Decide what criteria can be used to determine historical importance (for example: scope or
duration of impact).
•
Compare how a person, event or development is significant to different groups or individuals.
•
Describe accepted turning points in history by explaining the reason for their importance.
•
Evaluate various ways of determining historical importance or relevance.
•
Select a significant person, event, development or movement and ask students to identify how
that significance is recognised (in the media, in the community, official recognition). Identify
whose story is being told and who is silenced in this recognition.
•
Explain how the significance of a person, event, development or movement has changed over time.
•
Clarify the significance of what did happen by constructing a counterfactual — what would have
happened if circumstances were different?
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Teachers
•
Have students complete two minutes of continuous, uninterrupted writing, in which they write
everything they can remember about the unit. Discuss which content was remembered by most
students and whether that content represents the most significant individuals and events studied.
•
Ask students to rewrite history, foregrounding different things as significant, depending on the
purpose.
Contestability
See the supporting learning resource Contestability for more information.
•
Create visual representations, such as snapshots, illustrations, tableaus or games (for example:
‘freeze frames’) to show different interpretations of past events.
•
Compare different interpretations of the past, determining which is most plausible, using
evidence from sources to justify choices.
•
Locate evidence in a source and attach it to a chart according to whether it is fact or opinion.
For example, a date or a name would most likely be at the ‘Fact’ end of the chart, while an
interpretation of an event from a secondary source would be at the ‘Opinion’ end of the chart.
Discuss whether these placements are correct for any individual piece of evidence.
Historical skills
The Australian Curriculum describes historical inquiry as the process of investigation undertaken in
order to understand the past. It promotes the development of:
•
chronology, terms and concepts
•
historical questions and research
•
the analysis and use of sources
•
perspectives and interpretations
•
explanation and communication
Ideas for teaching the historical skills for this year
Chronology, terms and concepts
See the supporting learning resource Chronological awareness for more information.
•
Create timelines in the playground to show different time scales: a year, a century, a millennium.
Locate different events on the timelines.
•
Create digital timelines using websites such as Timetoast.
•
Explicitly teach the language of time, including:
◦◦ decade, century, millennium
◦◦ AD, CE, BC, BCE, the ‘xxth century’
◦◦ before, after, in the past, sequence, duration, chronology, anachronism, period, era, change,
continuity, cause, effect, timeline.
•
Create a timeline in the classroom to cover the period/s to be taught over the year. Add events
to the timeline throughout the year. Examine patterns or clusters that develop over the year to
inform discussions about significance, continuity and change, and cause and effect.
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•
Develop a sense of period by attaching images to a timeline, for example, of Tudors, Romans,
Crusaders and Ottomans.
•
Explicitly teach or pre-teach unit-specific vocabulary, including, where relevant, etymology and
word building. Build and add to a unit glossary every lesson.
•
Practise writing sentences with historical terms used in context.
•
Practise using contextual clues in sources to determine the meaning of new terms. Check
meanings in the dictionary.
•
Annotate sources to explain the terms used in a source to another person.
Historical questions and research
See the supporting learning resources Historical questions, The research process, Note taking and
Referencing sources for more information.
•
Modify inquiry questions based on information located in sources.
•
Use online search engines to practise devising and refining search terms.
The analysis and use of sources
See the supporting learning resources Sources, Assessing source reliability, Assessing source
usefulness, Interpreting political cartoons, Interpreting historical maps, Interpreting photographs and
Interpreting paintings for more information.
•
Compare the usefulness of a source depending on the inquiry questions used to interrogate it.
•
Create a graphic organiser or retrieval chart on which to record information from a range of sources.
•
Discuss how the absence of different perspectives in sources can provide information about
power structures in the society at the time.
See also the next section: Connections to the Australian Curriculum: English and literacy.
Perspectives and interpretations
See the supporting learning resources Perspective and Contestability for more information.
•
Invite a range of visitors to the classroom to present different perspectives and interpretations of
events in the past.
•
Use graphic organisers, such as Y charts, to represent and compare life in the present and past.
•
Look for evidence of values and attitudes revealed by sources and use additional sources to
determine whether these values and attitudes are specific to the source or whether they were
more generally held at the time.
•
Use a graphic organiser to compare perspectives on an event at different times in the past and
summarise the perspectives to show how they reflect changing beliefs, values and attitudes.
Explanation and communication
See the supporting learning resource Paragraph writing for more information.
•
Annotate a source to explain its content to another student.
•
Retell events in a range of genres and media such as narratives, annotated slideshows, comic
strips and drama.
•
Use models to scaffold learning about the language features of different text types.
See also the next section: Connections to the Australian Curriculum: English and literacy.
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Connections to the Australian Curriculum: English and literacy
History provides opportunities for students to develop literacy skills through:
•
the use of historical language, terms and concepts
•
the comprehension of history texts
•
knowledge of text structures and grammar in history
•
analysis, evaluation and use of sources and historical texts
•
identification of perspectives in historical texts
•
organisation and recording of historical information
•
presentation of historical information and interpretations.
1. Comprehending learning area texts
English — In Year 8, students are taught to use comprehension strategies to interpret and
evaluate texts by reflecting on the validity of content and the credibility of sources, including
finding evidence in the text for the author’s point of view (ACELY1734).
Comprehension strategies and processes are used by readers to make meaning from texts. Key
comprehension strategies include:
•
making connections between the text and students’ own experiences or other texts
•
making connections between information in print and images
•
finding specific literal information
•
using prior knowledge and textual information to make inferences and predictions
•
asking and answering questions
•
finding the main idea of a text
•
summarising a text or part of a text
•
reflecting on content by connecting and comparing information found in a text to knowledge
sourced elsewhere
•
determining and applying criteria for evaluating the credibility of a website
•
distinguishing fact from opinion.
History — In Year 8, students:
•
navigate, read and view a variety of challenging subject-specific texts with a wide range of
graphic representations
•
listen to extended spoken and audio texts, including audio-visual texts
•
respond to and interpret stated and implied meanings
•
evaluate information and ideas
•
interpret information
•
identify main ideas and supporting evidence
•
analyse different perspectives using comprehension strategies.
Teachers can encourage students to apply comprehension strategies taught in English when
reading, listening to or viewing texts in history.
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2. Composing texts through speaking, writing and creating
English — In Year 8, students create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that raise
issues, report events and advance opinions, using deliberate language and textual choices, and
including digital elements as appropriate (ACELY1736).
History — Students compose and edit longer sustained learning area texts, incorporating:
•
researched and analysed information
•
complex language features to explore topics and express and support opinions
•
a range of graphics.
3. Text knowledge: Text structures and text cohesion
Text structures
English — In Year 8, students are taught:
•
to analyse how the text structures and language features of persuasive texts, including media
texts, vary according to the medium and mode of communication (ACELA1543)
•
to understand the use of punctuation conventions, including colons, semicolons, dashes and
brackets in formal and informal texts (ACELA1544).
History — In Year 8, students use wide knowledge of the structure and features of learning
area texts to comprehend and compose texts, using creative adaptations of text structures and
conventions for citing others, such as:
•
historical recounts of a series of events with some summative commentary
•
historical narratives that retell past events, for example, from a particular personal or cultural
perspective
•
detailed descriptions, for example, of particular places from the past demonstrating use of
evidence from sources
•
explanations that, for example, present the causes of an event
•
discussion texts with supporting evidence.
Students use and develop their understandings of how to write a coherent, organised paragraph.
See the supporting learning resource Paragraph writing.
Text cohesion: Text connectives
English — From Year 4 onwards, students are taught about text connectives. In Year 8,
students:
•
understand how cohesion in texts is improved by strengthening the internal structure
of paragraphs through the use of examples, quotations and substantiation of claims
(ACELA1766)
•
understand how coherence is created in complex texts through devices like lexical cohesion,
ellipsis, grammatical theme and text connectives (ACELA1809).
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History — Texts are often made more cohesive through the use of text connectives, for example:
Showing cause/result
Adding information
so
too
therefore
in addition
then
indeed
consequently
apart from that
in/as a consequence
also
as a result
furthermore
for that reason
on top of that
due to, owing to
accordingly
because of this
in that case
Text cohesion: Topic sentences and the starting point of a sentence
English — From Year 5 onwards, students are taught to organise their writing to foreground the
most important information.
In Year 8, students understand how coherence is created in complex texts through devices like
lexical cohesion, ellipsis, grammatical theme and text connectives (ACELA1809).
Texts are made more cohesive and answer the question with more precision when:
•
an introduction is clear: In an extended text, the introduction emphasises the important
information to come
•
the topic sentence signals what the paragraph is about
•
the starting point of a sentence (all the words leading up to the first verb) signals and/or
links subject matter that directly supports the topic being explained, justified, discussed or
argued. (This is called grammatical theme in Year 8 English.)
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Text knowledge
Example
The topic sentence
signals what the
paragraph is about.
In most social and cultural aspects, the lives of the wealthy nobles
were vastly better than the lives of peasants. In housing, for example,
the peasants lived in basic cottages which were dark and damp, while
the upper class nobles kept warm and cosy behind the stone castle
walls with sunlight that streamed through glass windows. Similarly,
in clothing, the nobles again benefited from a variety of fabrics like
linen and furs to make elaborate gowns and coats in bright colours,
compared with the dull woollen tunics worn by the peasants. Although
there were aspects of entertainment that were shared by both groups,
including games and festivals, the nobles devoted more of their
time to leisure, while the peasants spent most of their time working.
Despite the obvious benefits afforded to the upper classes, one area
where there was little difference in quality of life was health. No matter
how wealthy one was, sickness and death came regularly to the door
of both noble and peasant alike. Life was harsh in the Middle Ages for
all groups when compared with modern society, but, when held to its
own standard, the nobles had a far superior existence compared with
the daily struggles of the peasants.
The starting points
(every word up to
the first verb) of
these sentences
either foreground
the subject matter or
serve to link ideas
between sentences to
support meaning.
Manorialism was a part of the feudal system that completely
dominated the lives of peasants in the Middle Ages. It dictated both
the services that peasants had to provide to the lord of their manor
and the obligations of the lord towards the peasants. Peasants were
required to do as the lord instructed them or risk punishment; work
on the lord’s land (usually two or three days a week); and pay the
lord taxes in the form of animals, produce and goods. In return, the
lord offered the peasant military protection, use of land the peasant
could farm and a share of common land for grazing. However, since
their lives were basically run by their lord, peasants struggled to have
time and resources to feed their own families. Most peasants were
tied to their lord for the whole of their lives and were unable to leave.
For these reasons, manorialism had an extremely significant impact
on the lives of peasants living in the Middle Ages, as it meant that the
peasants had little control over their lives.
History — In Year 8, more sophisticated paragraph responses will have clear topic sentences
and the starting points of sentences signal important information to answer the question.
Students can be encouraged to self-assess their responses to answers using their knowledge
of how the starting points of sentences and topic sentences can serve to signal important
information and thus enable students to answer questions in a more sophisticated manner.
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4. Grammar knowledge
English — From Year 5 onwards, students are taught the components of a complex sentence.
Complex sentences help students to extend and elaborate on ideas to demonstrate their
thinking. Students:
•
understand the difference between main and subordinate clauses and that a complex
sentence involves at least one subordinate clause (ACELA1507)
•
understand the uses of commas to separate clauses (ACELA1521)
•
understand the use of punctuation to support meaning in complex sentences with
prepositional phrases and embedded clauses (ACELA1532).
In Year 8, students begin to understand the effect of nominalisation in the writing of informative
and persuasive texts (ACELA1546). For example, ‘Petty theft was increasing in the slums of
London. This increase led to crowding in gaols’.
Students are taught about the degree of formality required in texts depending on their purpose.
History — In Year 8, students control a range of simple, compound and complex sentence
structures to record, explain, question, argue, describe and link ideas, evidence and conclusions.
Short-answer explanations are more effective when students use complex sentences because
they allow students to show reasoning, analysis, thinking, justifications and explanations.
Sentence structure
Complex sentence (two different types of
clauses)
Example:
Independent clause
Example:
This clause can stand alone as a sentence as
it makes sense on its own.
land ownership was the best indicator of
wealth.
Dependent/subordinate clause
Example:
This clause cannot stand alone as a sentence
as it doesn’t make sense on its own.
As it was an agrarian society,
As it was an agrarian society, land ownership
was the best indicator of wealth.
The dependent clause often starts with a subordinating conjunction, for example: ‘because’,
‘unless’, ‘if’, ‘whenever’, ‘while’, ‘before’, ‘until’, ‘although’, ‘since’, ‘in order that’, ‘even though’,
‘provided that’.
Nominalisation
Verb
Noun
Nominalisation is the process for forming
nouns from verbs. Nominalisation is a valued
feature of well-written texts in Years 8–12.
In History, nominalisation helps the student
to express information through nouns in
order to discuss, argue and explain ideas,
concepts, reasons, causes and effects and
so on. Nominalisation can support students to
move away from using more spoken, informal
language in their writing by converting some
verbs into nouns.
The rates of crime
increased …
This increase …
The nobility
perceived unrest
amongst the
peasants.
The nobility’s
perception of
unrest amongst the
peasants …
contested
contestability
believe
belief
analyse
analysis
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Informal
Formal
In Year 8, students control a range of simple, compound and complex sentence structures to
record, explain, question, argue, describe and link ideas, evidence and conclusions. Shortanswer explanations are more effective when students use complex sentences because they
allow students to show reasoning, analysis, thinking, justifications and explanations.
5. Word knowledge
English — In Year 7, students are taught how to investigate vocabulary typical of extended and
more academic texts and the role of abstract nouns, classification, description and generalisation
in building specialised knowledge through language.
Students understand the use of vocabulary to express greater precision of meaning, and know
that words can have different meanings in different contexts (ACELA1512).
History — Word knowledge (understanding learning area vocabulary):
Everyday
Specialised
Technical
In History, students should be encouraged to comprehend and use subject-specific vocabulary
(see the unit glossary) to express ideas and historical concepts. Using the simple continuum
above, students can be reminded to:
•
use a wide range of new specialist and topic vocabulary to contribute to the specificity,
authority and abstraction of texts
•
spell specialist topic words and use knowledge of word origins, base words, prefixes and
suffixes and unusual letter combinations to spell correctly.
6. Visual knowledge
English — In Year 6, students are taught to identify and explain how analytical images such as
figures, tables, diagrams, maps and graphs contribute to our understanding of verbal information
in factual and persuasive texts. In Year 7, they analyse how point of view is generated in visual
texts by means of choices, for example: gaze, angle and social distance.
History — Students are required to use visual knowledge to comprehend information displayed
in diagrams, photographs, maps and political cartoons, understanding how visual elements
create meaning. They analyse the effects of different visual elements upon the reader/viewer,
and how visual texts such as advertisements and informative texts draw on and allude to other
texts to enhance meaning.
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