History
The sample units of work for Years 7 & 8 History seek to introduce students to the study of History at secondary level and provide them with knowledge and understanding related to ancient and early modern societies. They address questions such as:
How do historians and archaeologists work?
How is historical knowledge constructed through the use of sources?
What were the important dimensions of early societies?
The sample units of work for Years 9 & 10 are aimed at broadening students’ understanding of the historical context of the world in which they live, through considering:
The transition from the ‘old world’ to the new;
The legacy of colonialism and imperialism for the world’s peoples; and
The events, people and movements that shaped the 20th century.
While these units were originally designed for Version 3 of the Australian Curriculum: History, they have recently been mapped to the Content Descriptions in Version 9.0. Importantly, they do not represent the entirety of the learning area of History 7-10. Rather, they provide adaptable and scalable learning pathways that can be shaped for use in diverse classroom contexts, and hopefully provide inspiration for locally-developed units of work that work for other depth studies and areas of the curriculum.
The units are designed to support teachers in devising appropriate teaching and learning activities for their students, and as such, the unit overviews provide suggestions for strategies to support student learning that can be further developed or adapted for implementation by teachers rather than taking a ‘blackline masters’ approach that seeks to provide pre-prepared material for classroom implementation.
It is assumed that students will have time in class to work on each Performance Task and that during this time the teacher will provide appropriately differentiated support to ensure that each student completes the task to the best of their ability. While Performance Tasks represent one ‘lesson group’ in each unit, the intention is that students will work on their performance tasks concurrently with other lesson groups, for approximately 7-10 hours. Over the course of the year, the completed Performance Tasks make up a rich portfolio of evidence of each student’s learning. The assessment rubrics that accompany performance tasks are designed to support teachers in the provision of explicit quality criteria to students, and a consistency of language has been used across the rubrics from Year 7 to Year 10. The rubrics are designed to be discussed and ‘unpacked’ with students such that they develop a good understanding of the meaning of the descriptors and build their Historical metalanguage.
The indicative time dedicated to the study of History in Year 7 to 10 varies greatly between states and territories. To this end, the units of work provided in Australian Curriculum: Classroom Approaches (History) have been designed to be implemented in approximately 15-20 indicative hours each, but it is anticipated that teachers will expand or contract the amount of time dedicated to each one depending on their school circumstances.
You can download the units for each year level from the links provided below.