Fact of Fiction?
(The following activity is taken from Learning to Teach History in the Secondary School, by Haydn, T., Arthur, J. and Hunt, M., London, Routledge, 1997, and is reproduced with the permission of the publishers).
Activity 1: Divide the following list of ‘people’ into two columns; those who existed in real life and those who exist only in stories and fairy tales. Then delete the record of those who you have decided are not real people.
Peter Pan; Adolf Hitler; Queen Victoria; Robin Hood; King Arthur; Roger Rabbit; William the Conqueror; Winston Churchill; Oliver Cromwell; Margaret Thatcher; King Henry VIII; Alfred the Great; Florence Nightingale; Mickey Mouse; Batman; Guy Fawkes; Superman
Activity 2: Look at the list of ‘real’ people that you have got left on your list. Try to put them in chronological order (the order in which they lived – furthest from the present day first on the list, nearest to today at the end). Try to make a rough guess as to when they were alive, and put them in the box for “before 1066”, or in the century when you think they lived most of their life.
