Lesson Plans

Research for Connecting Threads has necessarily required using a diverse set of sources—textual, visual, and material. Based on this research we have devised four different lesson plans that introduce students to the different kinds of sources scholars use to write histories. All lesson plans aim to help students think about the possibilities and limits of working with each different kind of source, including considering the historical context in which particular sources were created. The goal is to show students how historical sources (paintings, textiles, ledgers, travelogues, etc.) including those that were created in colonial contexts, can be used to centre the lives and experiences of underrepresented historical actors. We also encourage students to consider the possibilities of historical databases and their differences from archival catalogues.

The lesson plans are devised for educators teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students at different levels. For accessibility purposes, all required readings for the lesson plans are open-access. Further reading materials include journal articles and book chapters that might not be available on open-access.

While the lesson plans are organised as discrete activities to be done in a seminar-style class, we hope educators will use them in whatever way they see fit. This might mean only including parts of the plans or adapting them to fit within a particular course.