KS3:5 How should Thomas Clarkson be remembered?
Enquiry question
2. How did Thomas Clarkson protest?
Pupils’ Challenge
Thomas Clarkson spent
his whole life trying to end
slavery. Join him on a tour
round the country and
investigate the slave trade
in greater detail.
You will need to collect
evidence and use it
cleverly to persuade
parliament and the
general public to support
your anti-slavery
campaign.
Activities
Prepare powerpoint slides for whole-class discussion and
task modelling, using the resources provided...
Starter: A day in the life of…
Give a brief overview of Thomas Clarkson’s main
responsibilities, using (Teacher’s Guide 2.1).
Pupils acknowledge Clarkson’s role as a
researcher/investigator, detective and persuasive writer and
public speaker. An extract from Clarkson’s diary (Resource
2.2) and his speech in Ipswich (Resource 2.5) could
provide further details of his work for more able pupils.
Main task: The Clarkson Challenge
Pupils tour England, collecting evidence and use it cleverly
to destroy the arguments supporting the Transatlantic Slave
Trade.
Pupils will take four steps to identify, interpret and sort
evidence (contemporary source material) to destroy
arguments put forward to defend the Transatlantic Slave
Trade. Then they will use it cleverly to persuade others.
The tasks need careful modelling through whole-class teaching. Steps 1 and 2 help to set up the main activity (see (Teacher’s Guide 2.1).
Step 1: Know your history
Before pupils start their tour, they remember what they
have learnt about Clarkson and the triangular trade
Step 2: Know your enemy
Pupils learn some of the main arguments for the Transatlantic Slave Trade and match them to their sources.
Link the first two steps to the main task by using a tenpin
bowling analogy. Pupils imagine each argument as a pin –
they have to tour the country collecting evidence that will
knock these arguments over.
Step 3: Evidence Hunt
Set up the classroom as a map of England, laying out the
evidence packs in the appropriate place, and do group
research, journeying to each stop in order. Pupils follow
Clarkson’s journey, collecting the evidence he found
(Resource 2.4) and recording it on the Evidence Collection
grid as they go (Resource 2.3).
Allow approximately ten minutes for each stop on the tour.
Step 4: Anti-slavery Campaign
Pupils use the evidence they have collected to run an antislavery
campaign in the style of the time. They create;
(a) A pamphlet/leaflet.
(b) A poster.
(c) A speech (model the language of the time by exploring
a speech delivered by William Pitt (Resource 2.6), using
it both as a model of effective persuasive writing and to give pupils a sense of period).
Outcomes
- Pupils are able to identify the
range of methods used by
abolitionists such as Thomas
Clarkson to protest against
the slave trade.
- Pupils develop their ability to
identify, select and deploy
evidence to form
substantiated arguments and
counter-arguments.
- Pupils develop their ability to
organise and communicate
their ideas in a range of styles
(in extended writing, orally and visually).
- Pupils distinguish between writing to inform/educate and writing to persuade.
Resources
Teacher’s Guide 2.1
Resource 2.2
Extract from Thomas
Clarkson’s diary 1787
describing his visit to
Bristol.
Resource 2.3
Evidence Collection Grid (to enable pupils to sort information as they go).
Resource 2.4
Six evidence packs for the Clarkson Challenge (containing key witness accounts of the slave trade and how enslaved Africans are treated in the West Indies).
Resource 2.5
Clarkson speech in Ipswich 1840
Resource 2.6
William Pitt’s 1792 speech to the House of Commons