Fact or fiction?

Topics Year 4/5
This unit is part of Earliest Civilisations: Shang Dynasty The Shang Timeline

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Objectives

History

Children should understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of source.
Children should undertake an in-depth study of The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China.

English

Reading comprehension including making comparisons within and across books, distinguish between statements of fact and opinion, retrieve, record and present information from non-fiction.

Lesson Planning

Learn about some Shang rulers and discuss which are fact and which are possibly fiction.

Teaching Outcomes:

To evaluate the reliability of different sources about the Shang.
To discuss and present their evaluation of the reliability of different sources.

Children will:

Research questions in texts and online on a historical topic.
Learn to distinguish between fact and fiction.
Evaluate the reliability of sources.

Planning

Provided Resources

Images of Chinese histories and oracle bones
Story of the first Shang king
Information about other Shang kings
Research template

You Will Need

You do not need any particular resources for this session.

Weblinks

Shang Dynasty information from britannica.com
Travel China guide to the Shang Dynasty and emperors from travelchinaguide.com
Timeline of the Shang Dynasty from softschools.com
The Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology project from chinahistoryforum.com
The authenticity of the Bamboo Annals from stanford.edu
Information on the Shang Dynasty from stanford.edu
Webpages about the Shang from chinaknowledge.de