Mastering History: 5 Essential Skills Your Students Need & How to Teach Them

To do History well, there are lots of unique skills your students need to master. Read on to find out 5 essential skills your young historians need to learn, and how to teach them in your lessons!

people holding up books education — Teaching key History skills

1. Teaching chronology

Put simply this means what happened, in what order. Now this may seem like a pretty basic skill, but it should not go underestimated. A good grasp on chronology helps learners to understand more complex concepts like causation. This is essential when teaching history.

Here are some ideas on how to incorporate chronology into a lesson:

Timeline construction: Provide students with a blank timeline template or have them create one themselves. They can then populate the timeline with key events, dates, and periods from a specific historical era or topic.

This hands-on activity helps students visualize chronological relationships and reinforces their understanding of historical sequence.

Historical Event Cards: Create sets of historical event cards, each representing a different event or development. Have students work individually or in groups to arrange the cards in chronological order and justify their sequencing based on historical evidence.

Time-Travel Journal: Ask students to imagine themselves as time travelers visiting different historical periods. Have them create a journal or diary entry describing their experiences, observations, and interactions with key historical figures or events. This creative activity helps students engage with chronology in a personal and imaginative way.

2. Teaching source analysis

A key part of teaching History is being able to analyse sources from the past in order to help us find out what happened.

Think of a historical source like a detective clue that helps us understand what happened in the past. It's anything from that time period that gives us information, like old letters, diaries, pictures, artifacts, or even stories passed down from generation to generation.

Here are some ideas on how to incorporate source analysis when teaching History:

Primary Source Gallery walk: Create stations around the classroom with different primary sources related to a particular historical event or theme.

Students rotate through the stations, analysing each source and discussing its significance with their classmates.

Encourage them to consider questions like: Who created this source? Why was it created? What biases might the creator have had? How does this source help us understand the topic or theme?

Historical Source Jigsaw: Divide students into small groups and assign each group a different primary source related to the topic you are studying.

Have each group analyse their source and prepare a short presentation summarising what we can find out from the source and why it is important.

Afterward, regroup the students so that each new group includes members who have analysed different sources. Students then share their findings with their new group members, allowing everyone to understand each source.

Create Your Own Primary Source: Challenge students to create their own primary source related to a historical event or topic you're studying.

This could be a diary entry, letter, newspaper article, propaganda poster, or even a piece of artwork. Encourage students to consider the perspective of someone living during that time period and to incorporate relevant details and emotions into their creation.

Afterward, students can share their sources with the class and discuss how they contribute to our understanding of the past.

3. Teaching debate and discussion

Healthy debate is a key skill in History. After all, historians will often have different interpretations of events based on the evidence they have seen! In History lessons there will be plenty of opportunities to include discussion based tasks to progress your students learning.

Here are some ideas on how to incorporate debate and discussion when teaching History:

Structured Debates: Let’s start with a classic. Divide students into teams and assign each team a historical question, controversy, or topic to debate.

Provide resources and evidence for both sides of the argument, and encourage students to conduct research to support their positions.

Hold a structured debate where each team presents their arguments, responds to counterarguments, and defends their positions using historical evidence.

Role-Play and Simulation: Assign students specific roles or characters from a historical period or event and have them engage in role-play or simulation activities.

This could involve reenacting historical debates, conducting mock trials, or participating in diplomatic negotiations.

Encourage students to research their roles and consider the motivations, perspectives, and challenges faced by the individuals they are portraying.

Think-Pair-Share: Pose a thought-provoking question or statement related to a historical topic and ask students to reflect on it individually.

Then, pair students up to discuss their thoughts with a partner, encouraging them to share their perspectives and reasons behind their opinions.

Finally, facilitate a class discussion where pairs share their ideas with the whole group and explore different viewpoints together.

4. Teaching Historiography

"Historio" comes from history, and "graphy" means writing. So, historiography is basically the study of how history is written and how it changes over time. One of the key things about this is understanding that different historians will have different interpretations about events.

Here are some ideas on how to incorporate historiography when teaching History:

Meta-Historical Reflections: Encourage students to reflect on the nature and practice of history itself, considering questions such as: What is history? How do historians construct knowledge? What are the limitations and challenges of historical inquiry?

Engage students in discussions about the role of bias, evidence, and interpretation in shaping historical narratives, encouraging them to develop a critical awareness of the historiographical process.

This works particularly well in your first History lesson with them so they can consider these things as they learn.

Historiography Timeline: Create a timeline that highlights significant shifts in historical interpretation or historiographical debates related to a specific topic or period.

Include key historians, theories, and works to illustrate how our understanding of history has evolved over time.

Encourage students to explore the reasons behind these shifts and how they reflect broader social, cultural, and intellectual changes.

5. Teaching analytical writing

Analytical writing is essential for a successful History student. This is the ability to construct coherent arguments, support their claims with evidence, and communicate ideas effectively through essays, reports, and other written assignments.

Here are some ideas on how to incorporate historiography when teaching History:

Historical Mystery Writing: Present students with a historical mystery or unanswered question related to a particular event or figure.

Students research the historical context, gather evidence, and develop their own interpretations and hypotheses to solve the mystery. Students write analytical essays that explain their reasoning, evaluate alternative explanations, and draw conclusions.

Structured Source Analysis Worksheets: Provide students with structured worksheets or graphic organisers to guide their analysis of primary and secondary sources.

Include prompts and questions that prompt students to identify the author's argument, evidence, perspective, and biases, as well as the source's historical context and significance. Students can use these worksheets as a framework for writing analytical essays that evaluate their findings.

‘Who’s line is it next’?: Provide students with an essay question that they need to answer. Each student needs to write the first line of the essay and then pass their paper to the next person.

This then carries on until their answer comes back to them. The goal is to make sure the argument stays coherent throughout, so relies on students reading the previous lines carefully.

So there you have it, 5 key skills to include in your History lessons. If you have any other suggestions, please comment below to help the community!