1. History
Developing students’ critical thinking skills
through the documents-based study
http://pdst.ie/postprimary

2. 2
The documents-based study
 Key syllabus objectives
 Key learning outcomes
 Key terms

3. 3
The documents-based study
• Developing students’ historical literacy
– Terms used in the syllabus objectives and learning
outcomes
– Terms that may be used in documents-based
questions

4. 4
Thinking critically: learning to ask
relevant questions of sources
• What type of source is the document?
• Who produced the document?
• Why was this document produced?
• In what circumstances was this document
produced?
• When was this document produced?
• What can this document tell me? What
questions can it answer/not answer?

5. 5
Thinking critically: learning to ask
relevant questions of sources

6. 6
A card-sorting, critical skills activity
• Rationale
• What is involved

7. 7
Assessing students’ critical thinking
skills: the documents-based question
Format and question styles
• Comprehension
• Comparison
• Criticism
• Contextualisation

8. 8
The documents-based question,
2014-2015
Prescribed topic: The pursuit of sovereignty and the
impact of partition, 1912-1949
Exemplar questions (HL and OL)
• The Treaty negotiations, October-December, 1921
• Belfast during World War II
• The Eucharistic Congress, 1932

9. Belfast during World War II
http://www.secondworldwarni.org/associatedImage.aspx?pagerecordid=146

11. 11
The documents-based question
Some comments from the
Chief Examiner’s Report, 2011
• Lack of familiarity with vocabulary used
• Failure to adequately refer to both
documents, where required
• Students jumping to conclusions about bias

12. 12
The documents-based question
Marking scheme 2011
• Comments on work of journalists as primary
source material
• Marking indicators, Higher Level
• Marking indicators, Ordinary Level

13. 13
Developing students’ historical literacy
• Helpful words and phrases
• Using writing frames to develop students’
historical writing skills

14. 14
Developing students’ historical literacy
• A card-sorting exercise to help students
structure an answer to an historical question
– ‘Big points’ and ‘little points’

15. History
http://pdst.ie/postprimary