Children's work

In lesson 1 we thought about the answers to the following questions: What do I know about Marshall Taylor? What do I think I know? What do I want to find out? We also used an atlas to find key places in Marshall Taylor’s life.

Lesson 2 was about using primary and secondary pictorial sources to begin deducing information about Marshall Taylor. Lesson 3 was about using primary and secondary written sources to deduce further information.

Lessons 4-6 were literacy lessons. In lesson 4 we read some quite challenging primary source material, extracts from Marshall Taylor’s own autobiography. We found the meanings of new words and identified use of figurative language.

Then, in lesson 5, we read a children’s biography of Marshall Taylor. We grouped key information into categories and summarised the relationships between Marshall Taylor and the various people referred to in the text. After that (lesson 6) we read a website biography and sorted information into two categories: ‘facts I already knew’ and ‘new facts’.

Lesson 7 was history again. We were now ready to make a timeline, using information from all the different sources we had used so far. The next lesson, also history, involved reading statements and identifying which were facts and which were opinions. We also looked at which of the facts were positive and which were negative. We drew conclusions from this evidence.

Lesson 9 was a surprise! We learnt about Lewis Hamilton and made notes from video clips. We thought about the following questions: Who is Lewis Hamilton? How is he similar to Marshall Taylor? If Marshall Taylor lived today do you think he would be buried in an unmarked grave? What has caused the differences between their lives?

Lesson 10 was the last lesson in the topic. We wrote an essay, summarising our learning. The title was:

Changing Times

Most people have never heard of Marshall Taylor yet many people have heard of Lewis Hamilton. Why is this? And who was Marshall Taylor?