ECIS Reading
workshop
Pages for printing
To Secure These Rights was a milestone. Truman’s commitment to the cause of ‘civil
rights’ – a phrase that sounded more innocuous, and less inflammatory, than ‘racial
equality’ – marked a historic shift in the policy of the federal government. The
Roosevelt administration had enunciated a general principle of non-discrimination, but
it had condoned racial segregation. The Truman administration not only withdrew its
support from segregation but also proposed a comprehensive program to integrate
blacks into the mainstream of American life. It took twenty years, and relentless
pressure from the Civil Rights Movement, to induce Congress to enact that program.
Nevertheless, To Secure These Rights had set the agenda.
Adam Fairclough: Better Day Coming, p209
After they had discussed their own view of the significance of
To Secure These Rights students were given this passage as a
lesson conclusion. I wanted them to think about what kind of
change the report really was.
One word really jumped out as being analytically interesting –
which one? Why is it such an interesting word in the context of
a change and continuity enquiry?
How might you use this passage in a lesson conclusion?
the repercussions of such mismanagement were not only
economic but also social
they eroded still further the thin base of Bolshevik support
turning followers into enemies and enemies into rebels.
the repercussions of such mismanagement were not only
economic but also social
they eroded still further the thin base of Bolshevik support
turning followers into enemies and enemies into rebels.
62
63
6
7
The women who came knocking on Elizabeth Clarke’s door on Friday 21 March
1645 were Mary Phillips, Grace Norman, Frances Mills and Mary Parsley.
Goodwife Parsley was especially eager, her daughter having died in
circumstances that suggested witchcraft. Searching bodies was women’s
work: as well as witches, they investigated suspected plague deaths, murder
victims and criminals claiming they were pregnant. ‘Juries of matrons
(women)’, which usually included a midwife, had both special experience and
rights which meant they could search out medical proof in delicate cases.
Witchcraft was female power, and belonged to the female sphere of running
a household. People’s image of a witch tended to be that of an extremely
disobedient and destructive mother or wife. Other women were thought to
be the best detectors of such failings. It is not recorded whether Elizabeth
Clarke protested, but there were many hands to restrain her if she did. The
search-women found three devil’s marks which they thought to be unnatural.
Next came the task of waiting for the imps. In this the women searchers
were assisted by two men. Widow Clarke was kept under house arrest, seated
in the middle of the room. The watchers gathered round, drawing closer as
the sun went down and shadows cast by rushlight, candle and hearth loomed
like ghostly spectators. They yawned and nudged each other awake, but by
dawn had nothing to show for their efforts. They repeated their watch on
Saturday night, again without success. On Sunday, they probably took a
break. A few weeks earlier, a new prayer book had been published. It said
that Sunday was to be spent in piety, charity and mercy. Presumably this did
not include subjecting witches to ordeals.
On Monday, the watchers went back to work; but the results were the same.
By Tuesday night, the patience of the watchers was wearing thin. It was the
third and final day of watching and still no imps had appeared. After dark
that evening they were waiting and watching as they had on previous
evenings, the atmosphere still crackling with anticipation, when the cottage
door opened. Outlined in the gloom was the cloaked figure that might have
been the devil himself, but for his familiar voice. In walked Matthew Hopkins,
accompanied by his greyhound.
As his eyes adjusted to Clarke’s figure – an old dame in rags balanced on a
stool, crutch in hand – Hopkins began his threatening demands that she tell
him the names of the other witches. Widow Clarke said nothing. But just
as Hopkins reached the door the widow spoke up, her voice faint with fear
but hopeful. Asking only that they should not hurt her, Clarke begged him
to stay, adding, “I will show you my imps, for they be ready to come.”
Nothing happened and nobody moved. For the next half hour an air of
tense expectation hung in the room. Then Hopkins and the other watchers
became aware of another presence. Before their eyes crept a white
creature, like a cat, which silently greeted its mistress before retreating
into the shadows. Next she called ‘Jeremiah!’. According to Hopkins, there
appeared “an Impe like a dog, which was white, with some sandy spots and
seemed very fat with very short legs, then vanished away.” Were there
more? Asked Hopkins. Clarke said there was another who had not yet
appeared: a black beast called Sack and sugar, still out at work. It would
be home soon she promised, and would tear master Hopkins into pieces for
trying to have her swum in the river. But when Sack and Sugar finally
arrived, it seemed to be no more than a harmless rabbit. None the less,
Clarke told Hopkins he was lucky it had not leapt onto his face, squeezed
itself down his throat, and deposited a feast of toads in his belly. Anyone
found with marks like hers was a witch she declared. She went on to
describe meetings with the Devil and how he had pestered her until she
gave him permission to kill Robert Taylor’s horse and Richard Edwards’
pigs.
The next day Clarke was woken and taken before the magistrates. They
encouraged her to start at the beginning, and a miserable tale unfolded.
About six months earlier she had been gathering firewood near her house
when Anne West passed by. Anne showed pity for Clarke’s disability and
poverty, telling her there were ways and means for her to live much better
than she did, and promising to lend her a kitten that would bring her food.
Several nights later, two imps visited her and promised if she made an
agreement with the Devil, he would look after her forever. Elizabeth was
overjoyed.
Enquiry
question:
What can stories about witches tell us about?
Lesson
question
Aims and objectives
Lesson 1: Who To identify key features of
was a witch?
seventeenth century beliefs about
witchcraft
 to evaluate how far popular
stereotypes of witches are
grounded in a historical reality
Content/activities
 ISM: pupils draw a picture of a stereotypical witch
 Main activity: pupils interrogate a database constructed using stories from Witchfinders in order to make generalisations about
the kinds of people who were accused of witchcraft and the ‘powers’ they possessed.
 Conclusion: pupils compare the generalisations they have constructed with their original picture and identify similarities and
differences between them.
Lesson 2:
What can
Elizabeth
Clarke’s story
tell us about?
To identify and describe the
different ways witchcraft was
identified.
 To identify ‘big stories’ about
seventeenth century beliefs and
society
 ISM: pupils read an extract from Witchfinders in order to identify how witches were ‘spotted’ in the seventeenth century.
 Main activity: pupils are read an extended extract from Witchfinders on the watching of Elizabeth Clarke. They use the text to
draw a picture of the watching and then compare this to a contemporary woodcut of the scene.
 Pupils underline anything interesting about life in the seventeenth century that the text tells us about. They then annotate the
underlined sections in order to show what it tells us about.
 Conclusion: pupils consider why Malcolm Gaskill might be interested in the witch crazes
Lesson 3:
What can John
Rivet’s story
tell us about?
 To identify seventeenth century
beliefs about the causes, nature
and treatments for sickness.
 To identify ‘big stories’ about
seventeenth century beliefs and
society
 ISM: pupils are given a diagnosis for Goodwife Rivet, and four possible treatments. They have to decide which treatment
would have been used in the seventeenth century.
 Main activity: pupils read independently an extract from the Witchfinders. They use the extract to identify beliefs about the
causes of sickness, and the treatments used. Pupils then underline anything interesting about life in the seventeenth century
that the text tells us about. They then annotate the underlined sections in order to show what it tells us about.
 Conclusion: pupils return to their initial ideas about why Malcolm Gaskill might be interested in the witch crazes, and add any
new ideas.
Lesson 4:
What can the
story of
Manningtree
tell us about?
To characterise the nature of
seventeenth-century Manningtree.
 To identify ‘big stories’ about
seventeenth century society
 ISM: pupils are shown some ‘big questions’ that the stories of Elizabeth Clarke and John Rivet could help address. Pupils
come up with a ‘big question’ of their own.
 Main activity: pupils read independently an extract from Witchfinders that describes Manningtree, the town where Elizabeth
Clarke and John Rivet live. Use the text to construct a picture map of the town. Discuss where they think the characters they
have encountered would have lived, and add them to their map. Read an extract describing the mood in the town when the
witch crazes broke out, but with the key word (joyless) missing. Pupils suggest what word could go in the gap. The suggested
words are added to pupils’ picture maps.
 Conclusion: Discuss why the story of Manningtree might be interesting to Malcolm Gaskill.
Lesson 5: Why
do stories
about witches
matter?
 To evaluate the historical
significance of the witch crazes
 To explain the historical
significance of the witch crazes in
terms of what they reveal about
the seventeenth century
 ISM: Pupils are shown five individuals from contemporary society, and a group of aliens. They have to select five individuals
who they think the aliens should take back on their space ship to find out about life in twenty-first century Britain. Pupils are then
shown five characters from seventeenth century Britain, including Elizabeth Clarke, and are asked which of the characters could
tell the aliens most about life in the seventeenth century.
 Main activity: Pupils discuss what kinds of history they learn at Comberton, and what kinds they think they should learn about.
Discuss the usefulness of the ‘Five R’s’ as criteria for deciding what matters in history. Write a letter to the head of department
justifying the inclusion of the witch crazes in the curriculum, by explaining why the stories in Witchfinders are so revealing.
Enquiry question:
What makes a bad history book?
Lesson question
Aims and objectives
Content/activities
Lesson 1: When and where was it most
dangerous to be a European Jew?
To Identify patterns of change and continuity in the nature (religious, racial)
and degree of persecution of European anti-Semitism.
To evaluate European anti-Semitism at the end of the nineteenth century in
order to identify where it was most dangerous to be Jewish.
Anti-Semitism washing line provides an overview of European
anti-Semitism.
Case studies of French, German and Russian anti-Semitism at
the end of the C19th – pupils identify when and why it was most
dangerous to be a European Jew.
Lesson 2: Was German anti-Semitism
‘pregnant with murder’?
To Identify Goldhagen’s key arguments.
Investigation of the type and extent of German anti-Semitism before
To analyse and critique the relationship between Goldhagen’s claims and his 1933.
evidence.
Lesson 3: Were the Nazis’ policies just
‘common sense’ to Germans?
To analyse the evidence and counter-evidence used to support and attack
Goldhagen’s claims.
To critique and modify the language of Goldhagen’s claims.
Living graph provides an overview of the nature and extremity of
Nazi anti-Semitic policies after 1933.
Matching of Goldhagen and other historians’ evidence
Editing a short extract to make the claims better fit the evidence.
Lesson 4: Was there ever a master plan
to kill the Jews?
To identify and characterise changes in the direction, degree and goals of
Nazi policy from 1939 to 1942.
To evaluate the functionalist / intentionalist debate.
Stepping stones activity – a diagram that shows the size and
direction of the ‘steps’ taken towards genocide.
Lesson 5: In what ways were the killers
of Police Battalion 101 ‘ordinary men’?
To identify the characteristics and background of a typical policeman.
Creation of a picture of a typical policeman using an extended
extract from Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men.
Lesson 6: How far were the men of
Police Battalion 101 ‘willing
executioners’?
To identify and compare the similarities and differences between two historical
accounts of the same event.
Extended reading (Goldhagen and Browning).of two accounts of the
massacre at Jozefow.
Lesson 7: How can we find the argument To evaluate the persuasive techniques used by historians within narrative
lurking in the story?
texts.
Persuasive techniques bingo helps pupils identify key techniques
used in the texts.
Lesson 8: Why did ordinary men kill?
To explain why the policemen voluntarily participated in the Holocaust.
Pupils are introduced to Milgram’s ‘obedience’ experiment.
Four case studies of individuals are used to identify their evolving
response to killing and reasons for participation.
Lesson 9: How should historians use
evidence?
To critique Goldhagen’s treatment of the evidence.
To evaluate the implications of their findings on the credibility of his claims.
Pupils use other historians’ critiques of Goldhagen to identify
examples within a selection of extracts.
Lesson 10: What makes a bad history
book?
To evaluate the criticisms and merits of Hitler’s Willing Executions.
Pupils complete a little book that explains why some historians
think Goldhagen’s book is a ‘bad book’.
Germans did not kill Jews
because they were
pressured to do so.
Millions of Germans would
have killed Jews if they had
had the opportunity.
Germans did not kill Jews
because they were forced
to by the Nazis.
Explaining why the Holocaust occurred requires a radical revision of what has
until now been written. This book is that revision. This revision calls for us to
acknowledge what has for so long been generally denied or obscured by
academic and non-academic interpreters alike: Germans’ anti-Semitic beliefs
about Jews were the central causal agent of the Holocaust. They were the
central causal agent not only of Hitler’s decision to annihilate European
Jewry, but also of the perpetrator’s willingness to kill and brutalise Jews. The
conclusion of this book is that anti-Semitism moved many thousands of
ordinary Germans – and would have moved millions more, had they been
appropriately positioned – to slaughter Jews. Not economic hardship, not the
coercive means of a totalitarian state, not social psychological pressure, not
invariable psychological propensities, but ideas about Jews that were
pervasive in Germany, and had been for decades, induced ordinary Germans
to kill unarmed, defenceless Jewish men, women and children by the
thousands, systematically and without pity.
Anti-Semitism made
Germans (the perpetrators)
willing to kill Jews.
The anti-Semitic beliefs that
caused the Holocaust had
been present in Germany for
a long time.
Germans did not kill Jews
because they were killers by
nature or personality.
v.1
Hitler was adored by the vast majority of the German people…
Whatever else the Germans thought about Hitler and the Nazi
movement, however much they might have detested aspects of
Nazism, the vast majority of them subscribed to the underlying Nazi
model of Jews… There can be no doubt that the German people
understood the purpose and radicality of the anti-Jewish measures
unfolding before their eyes in the 1930s.
• Goldhagen’s account of Major Trapp
giving the order to shoot the Jews of the
Polish town of Jozefow
• Major Trapp assembled his battalion. The men
formed three sides of a square around Trapp in
order to hear his address.
• ‘He announced that in the locality before us we
were to carry out a mass shooting and he brought
out clearly that those whom we were supposed to
shoot were Jews. During his address he bid us to
think of our women and children in our homeland
who had to endure aerial bombardments. In
particular, we were to bear in mind that many
women and children lose their lives n these
attacks. Thinking of these facts would make it
easier for us to carry out the order during the
upcoming action. Major Trapp remarked that the
action was entirely not in his spirit, but he had
received this order from higher authority.’
• Some of the men testify that Trapp justified the
killing with the transparently weak argument that
the Jews were supporting the partisans. …
• Trapp also seemed to be expressing his genuine
emotions. He was shaken by the order. Trapp was
later heard to have exclaimed, upon seeing the
battalion’s doctor: ‘My God, why must I do this.’
Browning’s account of Major Trapp
giving the order to shoot the Jews of
the Polish town of Jozefow
The time had come for Trapp to address
the men and inform them of the
assignment the battalion had received.
Pale and nervous, with choking voice
and tears in his eyes, Trapp visibly
fought to control himself as he spoke.
The battalion, he said plaintively, had to
perform a frightfully unpleasant task.
This assignment was not to his liking,
indeed, it was highly regrettable, but the
orders came from the highest
authorities. If it would make their task
any easier, the men should remember
that in Germany the bombs were falling
on women and children.
How can we find the argument lurking in the story?
Emphasises details in
the story that support
the argument
1
Downplays details in
the story that don’t
support the argument
2
Appeals to the reader’s
emotions (e.g. where the
writing makes us
sympathetic, where it makes
us disgusted)
3
Use of powerful or
morally loaded
Use of horror to numb
language – i.e.
the reader into
language that has a Use of powerful images
agreement
moral dimension (CLUE:
look for what words he uses
to describe the men)
4
5
6