KS2:4 What is worth remembering about Thomas Clarkson and Olaudah Equiano?
Enquiry question
1. What is worth
remembering about
Thomas Clarkson
and Olaudah
Equiano?
This Scheme of Work is designed as a follow-up for pupils who have completed both “What should we put in an online biography of Olaudah Equiano?” and “What should we put in an online biography of Thomas Clarkson?”
Combined History and
Literacy Learning
Objective
To design a commemorative window for two historic figures, selecting appropriate details for inclusion.
Activities
Prepare enough computers for pupils to work in small groups. Pupils will need access to the internet and will use the date-cards from previous activities (SoW2 (Resource I) and SoW3 Resource E), together with a large version of the living graph (Resource A). They will need a template of a gothic window (Resource B).
Organise pupils into groups.
Give out a ‘living graph’ with time along the bottom axis and
happy/sad along the vertical axis (see (Resource A). Also give out
sets of date-cards from the Equiano Scheme (SoW2 Resource I) and
the Clarkson Scheme (SoW3 (Resource E). Ask groups to arrange
both sets of cards in chronological order, one set above and the
other below the time axis. Invite pupils to compare them and invite
comments. (The most obvious of which is that Clarkson lived for
much longer, although both men were born within a short time of
each other.)
Next, ask groups to arrange both sets of cards onto the living graph against the happy/sad vertical axis and compare the relative highs and lows of each man’s life compared with the other.Guide how groups can share their patterns (which will differ) through careful questioning (e.g. How much time did each spend in the British Isles? When might they have met? When were the highest and lowest points of their lives? Why were their lives so different? What did they have in common? Etc.)
Explain that the class has been given the job of designing a new stained glass window for St John’s College Chapel in Cambridge (where Clarkson went to university). Half of the window will celebrate the life of Clarkson and half of the window the life of Equiano.
Ask groups to form companies, which will design & produce the
window. They must think of a name for their company. Give each
company the common template of a standard arched gothic window
that is divided into different panels and parts.
Encourage the groups to research on the internet examples of
different designs of stained glass windows.
Explain that the design must include: a picture of both men, what they both did to help end the British Transatlantic Slave Trade (and slavery), locally (in Cambridgeshire and or/Suffolk), nationally (in the British Isles) and internationally (worldwide). Groups may use any medium to help design and then produce their window (e.g. collage, software, Perspex etc.)
The window designs can include original drawings from pupils themselves, or copies of any pictures/artefacts/documents they may have used in the previous enquiries or others they might research.
Remind pupils to focus on the most important parts of each man’s life and explain that the two halves of the window may merge into each other. They might find the introductions they wrote for each man’s biography useful in completing their designs.
On completion, invite groups to present their design to the class in turn, explaining their choices and taking questions about them. You may choose to run the activity as a competition, with a panel in role as fellows of St John’s, who will award the contract for the work to the winning company.
Outcomes
- To have arranged
information cards about
Clarkson and Equiano on
a timeline and living graph.
- To have participated in
discussion, comparing the
lives of Clarkson and
Equiano.
- To have participated in
designing and producing a
commemorative window, helping to justify choices made in the design.