'London Calling' Pre-visit Activities

1. Students begin by brainstorming in pairs how to define the word 'community'.

2. Build up a spider diagram on board. (This could be done by first introducing the school or a local sports club as an example of a community and looking at its key characteristics - why is it seen as a community? What features does/should a community have?). Consider shared geography, history, relationships, activities etc.

3. Compare the characterisitics that the students have generates with a dictionary definition: 'joint or common ownership of something, body of persons living in the same locality or with common race, religion, interests that are shared among those with whom they live, a gathering of people engaged in the same pursuit, or with the same interests, or belonging to the same organization, obeying the same rules/principles.' 

4. Students to make a 'collage' about themselves on sugar paper to express the communities that they belong to and the features of those communities. They could consider school, family, local community, leisure pursuits or clubs, sports, music, religion etc. They should make it colourful and descriptive, for example, they could bring in photographs, badges etc.

1. Arrange for the class to be in a computer suite with access to the internet.

2. Pupils should work individually or in pairs to produce an encyclopaedia entry on one of the following characters using the structure below:

• Name
• Date of birth / death (if applicable)
• Where they lived / worked
• Their achievements
• A few sentences on why they should be celebrated

Individuals:

• John Blanke
• Claudia Jones
• Buchi Emecheta
• Blair Peach
• William Wilberforce
• Michael Mansfield QC

Try the following websites for a start:

http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/list.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
www.bbc.co.uk/history
http://www.anl.org.uk/13-blairpeach.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REsharp.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REclarkson.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilberforce_william.shtml

3. When the pupils have completed their encyclopaedia entries they should share their findings with their peers. This could be done in the form of a presentation or an investigation similar to the Jigsaw activity below.

For this activity pupils will become "experts" about a person and then move to other groups to complete the jigsaw to learn about all of the other people featured.

Pupils should be put into 6 groups to carry out an investigation into 6 Black Londoners from the past and present.

Each group is given a ‘Fact Card’ and have 5 minutes to read the card which contains information about one of the six individuals from the past. They should consider the important events and contributinos, recording the key points from the card into their grid underneath the associated headings.

When 5 minutes is up the teacher calls time and a representative from each group moves to the next group to explain to them what they have discovered about their individual. They cannot take the fact card with them, but should work from the information already recorded and from memory.

After 5 minutes is up the teacher again calls time and they return to their own group before a different representative moves on to another group for a further 5 minutes.

At the end of the 30 minute period each pupil/group in the room should have a completed grid of facts on 6 Black Londoners.

Group Movement Order:

0-5 minutes	5-10 minutes	10-15 minutes	15-20 minutes	20-25 minutes	25-30 minutes
Group 1	1 -> 2	1 -> 3	1 -> 4	1 -> 5	1 -> 6
Group 2	2 -> 3	2 -> 4	2 -> 5	2 -> 6	2 -> 1
Group 3	3 -> 4	3 -> 5	3 -> 6	3 -> 1	3 -> 2
Group 4	4 -> 5	3 -> 6	4 -> 1	4 -> 2	4 -> 3
Group 5	5 -> 6	4 -> 1	5 -> 2	5 -> 3	5 -> 4
Group 6	6 -> 1	5 -> 2	6 -> 3	6 -> 4	6 -> 5

     

Grid to fill-in:

Name	Period in which they lived	Why we remember them?
Mary Seacole	[Col 2 Row 2]	[Col 3 Row 2]
Diane Abbot	[Col 2 Row 3]	[Col 3 Row 3]
Doreen Lawrence	[Col 2 Row 4]	[Col 3 Row 4]
Olaudah Equiano	[Col 2 Row 5]	[Col 3 Row 5]
Ignatius Sancho	[Col 2 Row 6]	[Col 3 Row 6]
Robert Wedderburn	[Col 2 Row 7]	[Col 3 Row 7]

Black History Fact Cards.pdf - all six cards in one PDF document

The teacher should select from the previous activities the best encyclopaedia entries and completed grids on some of the characters that will emerge in the ‘London Calling’ performance.

The teacher should then review these with the class. The pupils’ objective is to write down three questions which they feel they would need to ask to help them understand London’s Black history better, for example, ‘how did that person arrive in London?’, or ‘how many Black people lived in London in that period?’

Once the students have had time to formulate their questions, have them share the questions with a partner.  As a pair, they should narrow the six questions down to two, discussing why certain questions may be more useful to understanding London’s Black history.  The selected questions should be shared with the teacher, who will record them on the board.

With the class set of questions, divide students into research teams to find evidence to answer two questions which are different from the ones that they proposed.  At the end of the lesson, all answers should be shared through brief presentations.