The Iliad

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Pupil's Work (23 KB)
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The children attend a rural school with a mixed catchment area - children come from both the surrounding villages and a small local town.

Most of the previous history teaching had been undertaken using information books as secondary sources of information, and I was keen to use challenging text material both as a primary source of historical investigation and as a stimulus for poetry writing. I chose The Iliad rather than The Odyssey, as a large proportion of the class were already familiar with The Odyssey, and The Iliad seemed to be a good source of information about Greek warfare.

The topic of the Ancient Greeks had been started a few weeks previously through work on time-lines, location and geography of Ancient Greece, city-states and democracy. The children had also investigated the Greek gods and their importance in the lives of the Ancient Greeks.

I had already read parts of Rosemary Sutcliff's Black Ships Before Troy to give the children an overview of the main events and characters in the Trojan War. The role of the gods became apparent, and this led to lively discussion about how much of this could be true. The children initially found it hard to remember who the different characters were Â- whether they were Trojans, Greeks or gods. So I spent several short sessions using the 'hot-seating' technique: I wrote the names of gods, Trojans and Greeks on different-coloured card and the children picked a card to take on the role of that character whilst the rest of the class questioned them.

by Kate Mills, Buckinghamshire