Wars of Independence Resources

I had an email from a teacher recently asking about any resources I was aware of about the Wars of Independence. I thought my response might be useful for others too!

LTS have a great bit on the Wars of Independence on their website, including quite a few local East Lothian stories, which could lead into a nice map about EL in the time of William Wallace.

 http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/scotlandshistory/warsofindependence/index.asp

 Some of the oldest maps online don’t even go back as far as the time of William Wallace but are good for looking at which places were important http://maps.nls.uk/

 Depending on the age of your class, there is an interesting point about William Wallace which leads into more of a discussion about evidence and sources from the past. Most of the information we know about him today is from Braveheart (eek!) or a poem, actually written a couple of hundred years after his death by Blind Harry- so how much can we really trust if other people write our life stories – sometimes I’ve seen teachers pair up pupils, give each other a few facts about their life stories and then they have to ‘imagine’ the rest and see how much they get right, or more interestingly, how exciting can they made the other person’s life sound! For more info about this aspect of WW see: http://www.scottishweb.net/articles/101/1/The-Real-William-Wallace/Page1.html (or see the lesson plan download below about comprehension)

 Also, there is the story of King Alexander III whose death started the Wars of Independence. There is a nice archaeology type activity you can do with your class, as if you’ve just found some things he’s left behind on the shore after being thrown off his horse! 

Also, here are some lovely lesson plans and worksheets, with thanks to my sister for these:

Castles Comprehension

P4 Writing Term 2

Scottish Wars of Independence

Wars of Independence Comprehension

If you’re thinking of doing a visit somewhere, I would recommend either Bannockburn Heritage Centre or the Wallace Monument (both in Stirling). They also have good resources on their websites:

 http://www.nts.org.uk/Learn/schools_resource.php

 http://www.nationalwallacemonument.com/index.html

 If you have used different resources which you would recommend to others, please leave me a comment below!

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