St Mary’s Field Museum: Historic text analysis 

Overview:  

Before we build bridges, tunnels, tracks and stations, the largest archaeology programme ever undertaken in the UK is taking place along the line of route. This lesson plan is part of a collection of resources created by Fusion JV, an HS2 supplier who has been carrying out our archaeological work in Buckinghamshire.  

Students can discover the archaeology and history of Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire through resource packs which include print-out worksheets and exercises to encourage engagement with historic materials in the subjects of art, design technology, geography, English, science and history. These downloadable interactive `Dig-ital’ packs offer creative 40 minute workshops that encourage critical thinking and the application of scientific thought to the analysis of historic materials.   

The ’ Historic text analysis’ lesson looks at wills as an example of a historical documents that reveal information about life and death in Stoke Mandeville during the Tudor and Georgian periods. Students can download original handwritten wills from the period and analyse the information included in transcribed versions. The lesson also gives an opportunity to introduce written English in the early modern period and how it is different from the English used today.  

Learning Objectives: 

• Discuss primary sources – what are they, why are they useful – or not useful. 
• Learn how to “read” a primary source, how to pick out important information. 
• Explore the lives of the people in the documents and come up with questions about them which might need other primary sources or archaeological evidence to answer.

Delivery notes: 

This lesson will take about 40 minutes to complete. 

Students will need print outs, access to the internet for research.