I have a problem with the Crusades. I struggle to cope with the number of terms, places and names of groups that crop up as soon as I start reading about the Crusades. When I was editing Jamie Byrom and Michael Riley’s book The Crusades that was the part I had most difficulty with. Did I know where Anatolia was and how it related to the Byzantine Empire? Was I completely certain that the Byzantine Empire and the Greek Christian empire were the same thing? Could I tell my Fatimids from my Abbasids? Answer ‘No’ in all cases and I kept having to go back to check and that disrupted my reading.

In my experience this is a problem for numerous students in many topics. Getting to grips with names, places and terms is essential when starting an A level unit – if students don’t do so early on then they will struggle to read texts fluently (because they have to keep stopping to check) and then their confidence takes a steep fall. That’s not an exaggeration – I’ve seen it happen many times at A level and degree level.

So what do we do about it? Persuading them to stick at reading and checking glossaries is important but many students will be helped by a more visual, physical approach which tackles this problem directly. Intervening in this way is the teacher’s responsibility if a problem has been identified – even better, intervene before the problem becomes clear and before that confidence dip becomes a nosedive.

The three activities (in the document below) will improve understanding of the geography of the lands where the Crusades took place, the terms related to Christian groupings and thirdly the terms related to Muslim groups. It’s important to explain to students why they are doing these activities (i.e. explain to them as I’ve explained it in the paragraphs above) – and getting students to think explicitly about how they learn is important in its own right.

All these activities need a little effort to set up – at times you’ll feel something in common with a Blue Peter presenter - but it’s worth that effort if they help just a small number of students realise that they can get to grips with all these names and terms and then this encourages them to read more confidently.

Downloads

Download the activity file and the resource file:

• Word Document (3 activities together) [ click here ]

• Resources for Activities 1 & 2 [ click here ]

And if you're unfamiliar with tabards see the explanation on my ThinkingHistory website [ here ]