Humanities Thinking Skills Activity
Year Group: Year 8
Subject/topic: History, The causes of the English
Civil War.
Activity developed by: Maxine Squire
Brief description of the activity:
Issue packs of the cause cards to pairs of students. Ask them to organise the cards in to long
and short term causes and to develop their own definition of the terms long and short term
causes using examples from the cards.
Discuss other ways of classifying the cards – ask the students to develop their own
classification systems.
Record student classification systems using mind maps. The mind maps can then be used to
support extended writing or a as method for recording student thinking and identifying
misconceptions.
The cards could also be used with an opinion line to examine the relative importance of the
causes.
Thinking Skills promoted by the activity (please highlight the types of thinking
promoted by the activity):
Information processing
Reasoning
Enquiry
Creative thinking
Evaluation
Gather information, sort, classify,
sequence, compare and contrast,
analyse part and whole
relationships.
Give reasons for opinions and
decisions, use precise language to
explain thinking.
Ask relevant questions, pose and
define problems, plan what to do
and how to research, predict
outcomes and anticipate
consequences, test conclusions and
improve ideas.
Generate ideas, apply imagination in
the search for alternative solutions
Evaluate information, develop
criteria for judging their own and
others’ thinking and ideas.
Causes of the English Civil War Card Sort
1625
Charles married a French catholic
princess called Henrietta Maria.
1625
Parliament refused to give Charles
money, so he collected it anyway
and he decided to rule without
Parliament.
1630s
Charles introduced unpopular new
taxes and used old methods of
fining people to collect more
money e.g. Ship Money
1630s
Charles tried to make the Church
of England more Catholic. This
upset the extreme protestants
who were called Puritans. The
Puritans began to write pamphlets
attacking the church and the
monarchy.
1637
1637
Archbishop Laud put three
Charles tried to make the Scots
Puritans on trial. They were
use the English Prayer Book. They
found guilty and severely punished refused and Charles sent an army
e.g. Mr Burton had his ears cut
to force them. The army was
off.
defeated by the Scots and the
Scots demanded compensation.
Charles had run out of money.
Taxpayers were refusing to pay
their taxes. The only place
Charles could get money from was
Parliament.
January 1642
Charles went to the House of
Commons with 400 soldiers and
tried to arrest 5 leading MP’s.
However, the MP’s had been
warned and had escaped down the
River Thames by boat. The
Council of London protected them
and treated them like heroes.
March 1642
Parliament took control of the
army without Charles’ permission.
June 1642
On 1 June Parliament published
a set of demands called the 19
Propositions. A lot of MP’s felt
that Parliament had gone too far
and was demanding too much from
the King. Charles’ supporters left
London and joined the King at
Nottingham.
November 1641
Parliament would only help the
King if he gave them more power.
They made a list of demands
called the Grand Remonstrance.
The King was forced to execute
his chief minister, Thomas
Wentworth, Earl of Strafford.
st
1640
The King had to go to Parliament
and beg for their help.