Every card in Interpretations and significance, Year 9
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- The final event that sets off something long in the making, such as the shooting at Sarajevo in 1914
A trigger (or spark)
HintIt shares its name with the part of a gun that is squeezed.
WhyHistorians separate the spark from the fuel. Long-term causes build up the conditions; this is what finally sets them off. An essay that explains only the last event has explained when something happened, not why.
- A pupil's essay on why the First World War began gives one paragraph to each of five causes and then stops. What is missing that would turn this list into an argument?
A judgement about which cause mattered most
HintThe reader finishes it and still does not know what the writer thinks.
WhyListing causes shows knowledge; weighing them shows understanding. A strong essay says from the start which cause it will argue was most important, and each paragraph then helps to prove it.
- Write-up A says: 'The Depression put six million Germans out of work. Hitler was also a powerful speaker.' Write-up B says: 'The Depression gave Hitler's speeches a desperate audience.' What does B do that A does not?
It shows how the two causes are linked
HintA sets two facts side by side; B makes one depend on the other.
WhyCauses rarely act alone. Showing that one made another possible, or made it worse, is what turns separate points into an explanation. Phrases such as 'this meant that' and 'which allowed' are the joints of a causation essay.
- Historians sort causes into categories. 'Six million were unemployed' is an economic cause. 'The president appointed Hitler Chancellor' belongs to which category? (one word)
Political
HintIt is the category for governments, leaders, parties and power.
WhySorting causes by type (economic, social, political, military) gives an essay its shape and lets you compare them. You can then argue, for example, that economic causes created the crisis and decisions about power settled who gained from it.
- To test how important a cause was, a historian asks: 'Would the event still have happened without it?' If the honest answer is 'yes, much the same', what does that suggest about the cause?
It was not very important
HintTake it away in your mind and see how much of the story changes.
WhyThis thought experiment lets you defend a ranking with reasons. A cause whose removal changes everything is essential; one whose removal changes little is a detail. Nobody can rerun the past, so the answer is always a judgement, and it has to be supported with evidence.
- The term historians use for one writer's view of the past, built by selecting and weighing evidence
An interpretation
HintSomeone who turns one spoken language into another has a job title from the same root.
WhyThe past itself is gone; what we have are traces of it. Every history book, documentary or museum display is someone's reading of those traces, which is why two honest accounts of one event can differ.
- Historian A: 'The Treaty of Versailles was a cruel peace, and German anger at it was fully justified.' Historian B: 'Germans hated the Treaty, yet it was no harsher than the peace Germany had forced on Russia in 1918.' On what do the two agree?
That Germans deeply resented the treaty
HintSet aside whether the terms were fair and look at the reaction both of them describe.
WhyComparing interpretations starts with pinning down exactly where they part company. Here both accept how people in Germany felt; they differ over whether that feeling was deserved. Finding the common ground first stops you treating two accounts as opposites when they disagree on a single point.
- A historian writing in 1925 and another writing in 2015 reach different verdicts on a First World War general. Neither is careless. Suggest a reason, to do with their sources, why the later verdict might differ.
The later historian had more evidence to work from
HintThink what an archive opening its doors adds to a writer's desk.
WhyGovernment papers that were secret in 1925 have since been opened. Interpretations change as sources are released, discovered or read in new ways. That does not make the earlier writer careless; they worked with what existed. It is one reason to check a book's date before relying on its verdict.
- One historian's book on the Industrial Revolution is about trade, output and national wealth, and calls it a triumph. Another's is about the children who worked in the mills, and calls it a tragedy. Both use accurate evidence. Why do they reach different verdicts?
They are asking different questions about it
HintLook at what each one set out to find before a single source was opened.
WhyWhat a historian chooses to look at shapes what they find. One sees growth; the other sees suffering; both describe the same period truthfully. A fuller picture comes from holding the two together, not from picking a winner.
- Statement 1: 'The Battle of the Somme lasted from July to November 1916.' Statement 2: 'The Battle of the Somme was a futile slaughter.' Which is an interpretation, and not a plain fact?
Statement 2
HintOne could be checked against a calendar; the other needs an argument.
WhyA fact can be checked; an interpretation has to be argued for. 'Futile' is a judgement about purpose and results, and other historians argue the battle wore the German army down. Spotting the judging words in an account shows you where its interpretation lies.
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10★ KS3-HIST-INT-0010
Keep what you learn
Here, nothing is saved. In your child’s own sky every card is scheduled — it comes back just before they’d forget it — and the professor who wrote it is one tap away.