{"id":4582,"date":"2019-11-09T19:48:45","date_gmt":"2019-11-09T16:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/?p=4582"},"modified":"2019-11-25T19:54:07","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T16:54:07","slug":"new-blogpost-true-false-or-anachronism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/chronology\/new-blogpost-true-false-or-anachronism\/","title":{"rendered":"New Blogpost: True, False, or Anachronism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview<\/h2>\n

Helping students understand the concept of anachronism \u2013 the misplacing of a concept, object or individual in a time period where it could not have existed – is an important step to getting them to understand the concept of chronology, to empathise with people in the past and to understand a historical period. Arthur Marwick argues that “anachronism is still one of the most obvious faults when the unqualified\u2026attempt to do history”. One effective technique is to provide students with a short, but informative and evocative, written account. Within this, add some deliberate anachronisms. Challenge the students to use any sources available to them to work out which parts of the story are historically accurate, and which are anachronisms.<\/p>\n

I constructed the following short accounts and provided them to the students with plenty of space for marginal notes. Students underlined any facts that could be checked (this in itself was an interesting discussion which highlighted the difference between fact, opinion and imagination):<\/p>\n

Example 1: Imperial Rome<\/h2>\n

“It is a glorious day in Imperial Rome. The year is 1AD, and it is the month of August (recently named after the current Emperor, Augustus). After having a pizza for lunch, you hitch up your toga, climb onto your motorbike, and drive through city centre, admiring in particular the white marble statues and the magnificent Trajan’s column (engraved with battle scenes) and the Theatre of Pompey (named after the city destroyed by the explosion of Mount Vesuvius a few years earlier).\u00a0 You glance at your watch and decide you have time to watch a show, so you drive alongside the Aqua Virgo (one of the major aqueducts supplying the city), past the part of town recently destroyed by the Great Fire of Rome, and arrive at the Circus Maximus, which has just recently been rebuilt in stone. Here you watch a gladiator fight between two Christian prisoners, which reminds you that just last year Spartacus led a slave rebellion against the Romans”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Example 2: Victorian Britain<\/h2>\n

The year is 1891, a Saturday in May. We are in a London street. The horse-drawn cabs are busy rushing past and the streets are full of diesel-engined buses. A newspaper seller is shouting that today William Ewart Gladstone has died, and the advertisements on the street-side all announce trips to see the opening of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. A man in a bowler hat walks along the street trying to read his book (it looks like ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy) and as a result walks into an electric street light.<\/p>\n

A family comes past. One of the children stops to look at the books for sale in the shop window. ‘I say, father, they’ve got ‘The Invisible Man’ by H G Wells. Morris Minor says it\u2019s an absolutely ripping yarn’. The others pull him away; ‘Hurry! we must not be late or we will miss David Garrick at the theatre!’<\/p>\n

A group of rugby league supporters walk by, their scarves tucked into their jackets. They look cheerful, so their team probably won.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Students then listed all these facts underneath the account, and researched each one in turn to declare it \u201ctrue\u201d (in which case they had to elaborate), \u201cfalse\u201d (in which case they explained why it is factually incorrect) and \u201canachronism\u201d (in these instances, they had to explain why it is something which has been placed into the wrong time period by explaining the historical time period in which it actually belongs).<\/p>\n

This is a nice way to engage students in a bit of targeted research and a quick blast of information about the topic from a fresh perspective. It works particularly well as a starter or extension activity.<\/p>\n

Taking it further<\/h2>\n

Get students to produce their own accounts in a similar manner. Additionally, they could try to sketch an imagined scene containing anachronisms.<\/p>\n

Older students could be challenged to research the meaning of two very different types of anachronism: parachronism and prochronism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overview Helping students understand the concept of anachronism \u2013 the misplacing of a concept, object or individual in a time period where it could not have existed – is an important step to getting them to understand the concept of chronology, to empathise with people in the past and to understand a historical period. Arthur… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[191],"tags":[1211,1205,1210,1209],"class_list":["post-4582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronology","tag-anachronism","tag-blogpost","tag-false","tag-true"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2819,"url":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/key-stage\/year-7-history\/year-7-history-skills-the-body-on-the-balcony-episode-1-a-historical-mystery\/","url_meta":{"origin":4582,"position":0},"title":"Year 7 History Skills: The Body on the Balcony EPISODE 1, a Historical Mystery!","author":"Russel Tarr","date":"September 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Body on the Balcony EPISODE 1 - a Historical Mystery! In this exercise, based on a real historical event, students have to put events into their correct chronological order to make some initial speculations about what has happened. Through doing this they learn about the importance of chronology and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "1000-1450 (Year 7 History)"","block_context":{"text":"1000-1450 (Year 7 History)","link":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/category\/historical-periods\/medieval\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Crime Scene","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/12221395-crime-scene-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5183,"url":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/key-stage\/ib-history\/castro-essay-planning-exercises-matrix-grids-blogpost-sample-student-slides\/","url_meta":{"origin":4582,"position":1},"title":"Castro Essay Planning Exercises | Matrix Grids – Blogpost | Sample Student Slides","author":"Russel Tarr","date":"December 27, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Essay Planning Exercises\u00a0|\u00a0Matrix Grids - Blogpost\u00a0|\u00a0Sample Student Slides In this phase, students use their research to consider how they could use it to answer two possible questions:Was Castro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s use of propaganda more important than his use of force as a means of maintaining power?How Authoritarian was Castro's Cuba? Part of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "1900-2000 (GCSE History)"","block_context":{"text":"1900-2000 (GCSE History)","link":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/category\/historical-periods\/20th-century\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3446,"url":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/chronology\/timeline-jigsaw\/","url_meta":{"origin":4582,"position":2},"title":"Timeline Jigsaw\u00a0","author":"russeltarr","date":"March 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Overview: Provide students with a list of events running down the page. To the right of the events are two columns as so: Event My Guess\u00a0 Correct Answer\u00a0 Difference William has himself crowned as King of England Edward the Confessor dies Harold Godwineson swears to support William as the next\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chronology"","block_context":{"text":"Chronology","link":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/category\/chronology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3492,"url":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/chronology\/create-a-fakebook-profile-for-a-key-character\/","url_meta":{"origin":4582,"position":3},"title":"Create a \u201cFakebook\u201d Profile for a key character","author":"russeltarr","date":"October 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"When researching a key character, students could frame and present their findings by creating a fake \u201cFacebook\u201d profile using the Fakebook application at ClassTools. Using this tool, students can create a timeline of a person\u2019s life, written in the first person and in the present tense (to help prevent \u2018cut\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chronology"","block_context":{"text":"Chronology","link":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/category\/chronology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screen Shot 2015-02-12 at 11.31.16","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Screen-Shot-2015-02-12-at-11.31.16-1024x549.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Screen-Shot-2015-02-12-at-11.31.16-1024x549.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Screen-Shot-2015-02-12-at-11.31.16-1024x549.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Screen-Shot-2015-02-12-at-11.31.16-1024x549.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3457,"url":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/chronology\/design-a-hollywood-film-poster\/","url_meta":{"origin":4582,"position":4},"title":"Students design a Hollywood Film about the study topic","author":"russeltarr","date":"May 15, 2015","format":"video","excerpt":"A great way to get students familiar with the key events of a historical person's life and consider concepts of significance. Stage 1: Start by outlining the central task\u00a0 [themify_box style=\"purple\u00a0comment rounded\" ] You are a Hollywood director producing a film about [person \/ topic]. You will produce a poster\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chronology"","block_context":{"text":"Chronology","link":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/category\/chronology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screen Shot 2015-02-01 at 20.12.44","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Screen-Shot-2015-02-01-at-20.12.441-291x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4574,"url":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/history-teachers\/unseen-history-a-new-blogpost\/","url_meta":{"origin":4582,"position":5},"title":"“Unseen history” – a new blogpost","author":"Russel Tarr","date":"October 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Overview Building up a sense of anticipation and curiosity within a history lesson is always a great way to engender a sense of interest and engagement. What follows are a few ideas which I have found work particularly effectively. What's in the Bag? I am a big fan of using\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History Teachers"","block_context":{"text":"History Teachers","link":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/category\/history-teachers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4583,"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4582\/revisions\/4583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.activehistory.co.uk\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}