FREE Thinking Kit activity - Women’s Suffrage

Women’s Suffrage activity

In our free Thinking Kit App, you can download activities created by us, those shared by other educators (or even learners) or those that you have created yourself. To do so:

1. Download the app (click here or search Thinking Kit App on the App Store).
2. Launch the app, tap Educator, then New Session then 'Download task'.
3. Enter the Task Code (6928 for the Women's Suffrage task or click here for other activities).

More information about the Bob's Password Algorithm activity

Subject: History
Topic: Women's Suffrage Movement, Politics, Voting, Women's History,
Audience: 14-16 year olds
Question: Who should get the credit for the success of the campaign to give British women the vote on equal terms with men?
Author: Reflective Thinking
Task Code: 6928

This Thinking Kit activity, written by Elizabeth Doyle, explores the long and short term causes of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, and the events that led to its eventual success. Transformed into a free iPad task to commemorate International Women’s Day 2016 and Women’s History Month, it could be used as an introduction to the movement, and would also support studies at GCSE.

Students are encouraged first of all to create an overview of the campaign, and to identify and evaluate the ways in which the supporters of the movement sought to achieve their aims. In doing so, the more able should come to realise that this was not a campaign that was united at all times. They are then encouraged to consider whether the more radical tactics of the ‘Suffragettes’ were a help or perhaps a hindrance to the eventual change in the law. In addition, factors outside of the actual campaign are examined; the developments in both women’s education and the creation of Parish Councils had encouraged a growing awareness of the need for women’s emancipation. This was a topic for discussion by the daughters of the growing middle (and upper) class population.

The ways in which the students make sense of the information are up to them. As the activity was designed with a “problem solving” Digital Mysteries task, we recommend that students follow the three “stage” technique: firstly read all of the slips, secondly create named groups (with the grouping tool) and then sort the slips into some sort of order or chain. This helps them make the most out of the information as well as externalise their thinking onto the screen.

This task supports differentiation. It was originally designed with three different difficulty levels in mind, so that as the difficulty level goes up, the more slips of information are given to students – specifically the more complex slips. Different sub-questions are recommended for each group of slips too. If you would like to follow Elizabeth’s ‘easy, medium, hard’ plan (please see below), you can use the Thinking Kit Creator to delete the slips not needed for easy or medium, and click ‘save as’. This will generate a new code for you to use to download the activity in the Thinking Kit App. You could also use the Thinking Kit Creator to add your own bits of information and images, or better still, get the students to research the topic and see what they add. The whole class could then have a go at completing each other's customised activities.

Easy

Slips 1-14

Recommended sub-questions:

• Who was Emily Davies, and what was her contribution to the Women’s Suffrage Movement?
• What methods did the Women’s Suffrage Movement use in their campaign?

Medium

Slips 1-20

Recommended sub-questions:

• What objectives did the Suffrage campaigners have?
• What disagreements over tactics existed between the different Suffrage campaigners?
• What influence did Parish Councils and the extension of education opportunities have on the campaign?

Hard

Slips 1-24

Recommended sub-questions:

• In your view, what were the most effective methods; the making of modest demands in a legal way, or drastic and illegal acts? (i.e. ‘Suffragists’ or ‘Suffragettes’?)
• Why were so many of the campaigners from more wealthy backgrounds?

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