General teachers’ introduction
The Churchill Era, produced by Churchill Archives Centre, is specially designed to enable teachers and students to make use of archive material in the classroom.
Document work is an important part of the requirements of history courses both at GCSE and at AS and A level. Students are required to analyse and evaluate source material, either as part of a source exercise, or else in researching an Extended Essay or Personal Study. In addition, work with documents is an important part of the requirements for Key Skills assessment.
This website is divided into units reflecting important issues which arose during the long public career of Sir Winston Churchill. Each unit contains two or three specific enquiries which can be addressed and explored using material drawn from the Churchill Archives.
Each enquiry consists of a key question, and a series of exercises based upon relevant documentary material which will help the student to develop an answer to the key question. These exercises include document analysis, comparison of documents, and work with pictures, maps and statistics.
Some of the exercises test comprehension of the material; others require students to put the material in its context. Students may work singly or in groups. The exercises can then be used in writing a short report or essay in response to the Key Question.
Some of the documents have been reproduced in their original form, especially where this is relevant to the analysis or evaluation of the material.
Key words, terms, and names may be checked in the website glossary.
