Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham and I'm so glad you've decided to join me for today's lesson.

Today we're going to take our first steps towards writing another piece of narrative writing based on "A Kind of Spark" and we're going to do that by using drama to explore the Scottish witch trials that is such an important part of the plot of the book, particularly focusing on Maggie's story.

Let's make a start.

Today's lesson is called Exploring a Historical Scenario Linked To "A Kind of Spark," and it comes from my unit called "A Kind of Spark" Narrative Writing.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to empathise with a character from a historical scenario and reenact a scenario to better understand the character's motives.

Now for this session, you will need to have access to the 2020 Knights of edition of "A Kind of Spark" written by Elle McNicoll and illustrated by Kay Wilson.

If you're ready, let's make a step.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

Empathise means to get inside a character's head.

A dialogue is the spoken words between two or more people.

And to reenact something means to act out an event from the past.

Here's lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by trying to empathise with a historical character and then we'll move on to reenacting a historical scenario.

Now, as we know, the events in "A Kind of Spark" are very closely linked to the events of the Scottish witch trial.

So let's just review our history on those events for a moment.

We know that these took place from around 1560 to 1736 AD in what we call the early modern period.

And they happened as a result of some of the teachings of the church at that time, which of course are no longer the case.

So the church was very powerful at that time and they told people that witchcraft was real and that it was driven by the devil.

So an association or a link to the devil was what made someone become a witch.

And witchcraft was made punishable by death as a result of this in Scotland at around this time.

And as a result of the Scottish witch trials we know that 5,000 people, many women, were accused of witchcraft and put on trial.

And often these are people who are considered to be odd or outcast, or different in some way.

And as a result of the trials, around 2,500 people were executed after being found guilty.

Now, we know that the methods used to identify witches were very unfair.

So there were methods such as pricking where you were pricked with a needle and if you didn't bleed, then you were accused of being a witch and searching for birthmarks, which were considered the devil's mark.

Both of those were used but also we know that neighbours' stories were (indistinct) on these trials.

So, the things that your neighbours said about you influenced the outcome of the trial and whether you were found guilty of being a witch, which could have led to you being executed.

So can you explain why the events of the Scottish witch trials are so significant in "A Kind of Spark?" Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good ideas.

We know there's lots of reasons why these events influenced the plot of the story.

We know that when Addie learns about the witch trials, she's really inspired to campaign for the memorial for the accused people, which is one of the main plot points in the book as we know.

And we know that when Addie learns about the personal stories of several particular women from her local community, their memory inspires her throughout the story and particularly in her final speech as we'll discuss later.

And we know that Addie can see a connection between the treatment of autistic people like Bonnie in the present day and the treatment of the women who were outsiders and accused of witchcraft during the period of the witch trials.

So she makes a connection between those two forms of treatment and that's partly what drives her campaign and inspires her.

Really well done for your thoughts there.

Now, we've also learned that vulnerable people were often used as scapegoats for problems in the community through the witch trials.

So let's imagine that a village has been experiencing bad harvest and they've experienced been experiencing flooding which have left them with little food for the winter.

They've got a big problem on their hands, so they want to find a scapegoat.

So people might have linked this bad experience to the presence of the devil in their community, and they're looking around for someone to blame.

Because remember at that time people believed, especially because of the church's teachings, the devil could influence their lives directly.

So they might have seen these bad outcomes as a result of the devil's interference in their community, and they're looking for someone who's linked to the devil.

So they might have found someone who lived alone or who behaved in some way strangely and seen that as the connection between the village and the devil, that person was bringing the devil's influence into the community.

And then this person's neighbours could accuse them of witchcraft and could tell the trial all about bad things they'd done as evidence.

Some of those bad things might have been real but they were used as evidence of witchcraft because the village wanted to get rid of this negative influence of the devil on their community.

So why would it have been seen as good for the village to get rid of the person who is accused of witchcraft? Pause the video and have a think about the motives behind people's accusations here.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So first of all, the people in the village, as we said, saw the bad things they were experiencing as being caused by the witch's links to the devil and the witch's powers that they had got from the devil.

So because of that, removing the person with the links to the devil from that community would make the village holier, better, meaning that the bad things might stop happening.

And remember at this point, science was less advanced than it is now.

So people struggle to explain why bad things were happening because of this lack of knowledge, and that led them to refer instead to the devil or to the witchcraft as the cause of these bad things happening.

So remove the witchcraft means removing the presence of the devil, meaning removing the cause of these bad things happening in the village.

Now a really important theme in "A Kind of Spark" is Addie learning about the stories of several particular women from her village who were tried for witchcraft during the witch trials.

So one of those is Maggie.

So we hear that Maggie was accused of being the devil's wife and wasn't sure how to defend herself, and finally confessed to being a witch.

We also hear the story of Jean.

And Jean is someone who lived alone and she cursed a neighbour after an argument, and was, as a result, accused of being a witch.

And then after an animal died after this curse had been laid, she was put before a village council and she denied being a witch and she was sadly tortured.

And eventually, as a result of that torture, she confessed and was hanged, that's executed, for being a witch.

So I'd like you to pause the video here and read the stories of Jean and Mary that are described on pages 57 to 62 of "A Kind of Spark." Have a go.

So based on what you've read, can you now try and tell your partner the events of Mary's story.

Have a go.

Well done.

Really good job.

So hopefully you started with she was seen as being mad and was begging, so she was in need of money as well.

And then she was accused of being a witch as a result of this.

And she was brought before the village council.

She probably didn't understand what she was accused of doing and she confessed to being a witch and she showed the village council a birthmark, which was seen as showing a link to the devil.

And it's implied in the story that she was hanged as well, just as Jean was.

Really well done for getting those events in the right order.

So why is Addie moved by the stories of these women? Why did their stories affect her emotionally? Can you choose all of the relevant answers here.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So yes, she sees that they were vulnerable people.

She doesn't believe that they're her distant relatives but she sees that she might have been treated in the same way as they were had she lived at that time.

And as we say at the end here, she's able to see them as real people and not just historical figures.

And that's what we need to try and do in this lesson as well.

Really well done with your ideas there.

So how do we know that Maggie's story is particularly important to Addie in "A Kind of Spark?" We've heard the story of Maggie and Jean and of Mary, but why is Maggie's story particularly important? What evidence do we have of that? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So, Laura says, "In chapter 14, Addie's reading about witchcraft accusations and she thinks about how Maggie would've felt.

And she then writes Maggie's name on her hand in marker." So we can see she's choosing Maggie's story and Maggie's name to write on her hand there.

And Jacob says, "Then, when Addie makes her final speech, she writes Maggie's name on her hand again and she looks down at it to inspire her to have the courage to say what she wants to say." So Maggie's name on Addie's hand is really important during that final speech, it shows that she's trying to be inspired by Maggie's story to give her the courage to continue with that speech.

Really well done for your ideas there.

So as we've said, Maggie's story is particularly important to Addie in the book.

So we're going to try and empathise now with Maggie's story.

So we know that Maggie was accused of being the devil's wife, wasn't sure how to defend herself and finally confessed to being a witch.

So what might Maggie have been like that made her vulnerable to being accused? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you.

Well done.

Good ideas.

Now we can't be sure, can we? But perhaps she lived alone.

Maybe she talked to herself a lot, didn't speak to other people very much.

Maybe she seemed a bit odd or a bit different, and maybe she was older or poorer.

All of these would have made her vulnerable to these accusations at the time.

So how do you imagine Maggie's life and how much she interact with her neighbours? What do you imagine her spending her time doing and how do you imagine her talking and relating to the people around her? Pause the video and have a think and you can use your imagination here to put yourself in Maggie's position and imagine what her life might be.

Have a go.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So Andeep says, "I think maybe she might be very lonely with few friends or family, and as a result, she'd need to work hard to feed herself and maybe she'd be tired and grumpy because of that." And that could have made her vulnerable, couldn't it, to these accusations.

The fact that she lives alone means she has no one to defend her and also maybe if she's tired and grumpy from having worked all day to feed herself and keep herself going, then she could be at risk of being seen as unpleasant or unkind by the people which could have led to the accusations.

Here's what Sam says.

"Maybe she was known for making herbal remedies.

She might get in lots of arguments with her neighbours because they see her as an easy target and that could make her curse them." We said, didn't we, that sometimes these accusations arose from people being cursed by their neighbours, and that person might have just said the curse when in an angry moment and that could have led to them being accused of witchcraft later.

Some mentions herbal remedies.

At that time, medicine and doctors would not be very advanced.

So people might have turned to someone in the village to give them herbal remedies and natural treatments for illnesses they might feel.

And imagine if those herbal remedies didn't work then that could have led to that person being accused of having done something bad to the person they'd actually been trying to help.

So all of these factors might have contributed to Maggie being vulnerable to these accusations.

Good ideas.

So let's do our first task for assessment.

We're gonna take on the role of Maggie.

So we're gonna take three moments from her story and imagine her thoughts and those different moments using our empathy skills.

Here are three imagined moments.

We're gonna imagine her being bullied in the village before she's accused of witchcraft, her being accused of witchcraft, and her finally confessing.

So that first event of Maggie being bullied, we're imagining how does the village treat her before she's being accused of witchcraft? How can we show that she's vulnerable to these accusations in the way that she's treated in the village? So let's start off by having one person who's maybe an adult in role as the villagers and everyone else is going to be in role as Maggie.

So that villager, that person in role as the villagers, is gonna set the scene for each of these three moments.

So, by doing the bullying of Maggie, by making the accusation of witchcraft or by demanding that Maggie confess in her trial.

And then everyone else is going to have time to get into a physical pose that reflects Maggie's feelings at that particular moment and to prepare their thoughts in each of those moments.

So we're going to do it for being bullied then for being accused, and then for confessing.

So you need to be ready to share your thoughts in role as Maggie in each of those situations.

So pause the video.

One person taking on the role of the villagers, everyone else reacting as Maggie and taking the time to compose not only a physical position to show her feelings, but a detailed account of what her thoughts might be speaking in role as Maggie in each of those moments.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Really good job.

So here are some of the thoughts you might have shared in role as Maggie at the various points we've chosen.

So let's imagine being bullied in the village.

Maybe you said something like this as Maggie's thoughts, I wish people would just leave me alone.

All I want is to get on with my day in peace.

There's so much work to do when you've got no family to help you.

Maybe for being accused you have these ideas for Maggie's thoughts.

Why are they saying I'm the devil's wife? I go to church every week! And I don't have the devil's mark on me either.

Are they going to hurt me? And finally for confessing maybe you said this.

They're never gonna stop, are they? They need me as a scapegoat for all their problems. I have no choice.

I just want this to be over.

So I've tried to show there what Maggie's thoughts might have been at each of those three different points we've imagined in her story.

Really well done for your ideas there as well.

Great job.

So we've had a go at empathising with Maggie in that situation.

We're now going to expand our ideas a little bit to include everyone involved in this scenario and try to reenact the events that may have happened.

So we've thought about what Maggie might be feeling at different points in her story.

What other characters might have been involved in the scenario that we've described involving Maggie.

Pause the video and have a think.

Well done.

Good ideas.

So we can imagine several other people who might be involved.

We might have Maggie's neighbours who might have been on bad terms with her and who might have accused her of witchcraft.

And they might also have been involved in that bullying that we described before she was accused.

And people in the village who might have come to arrest Maggie after these accusations might also have been involved here.

And finally, there might be people on the village council or elsewhere who tried Maggie, so who put her on trial for witchcraft.

So we can imagine all of these people getting involved in the persecution of Maggie in this situation.

So true or false, Maggie's neighbours would've been able to influence the outcome of the trial.

Pause the video and decide.

Well done.

You're right.

Unfortunately that's true.

Why is that the case? Pause the video and decide what the best justification is.

Well done.

You're right, it's B.

These neighbours might have been the people who were giving evidence of the trial and they might also have been the people making the decision in the trial.

Remember we were talking about small communities where everyone might have known each other and so all of their experiences with Maggie might have fed into their behaviour before and during the trial.

So we can use our ideas about these other characters to flesh out our ideas about Maggie's story.

We've already said that Maggie might have been bullied by people in the village for being different.

So let's imagine what that bullying might have looked like for a moment.

Maybe Maggie makes a herbal remedy for a villager but it doesn't work and they end up getting more sick.

And then the villagers decide that Maggie's poisoned this person on purpose.

Maybe Maggie's seen coming in late to church one week and she's looking dishevelled and tired, and maybe the other villagers laugh at her as she sits down and then she gives them a scornful look back.

So I'm trying to imagine a little bit of what this bullying might have looked like.

So I wonder if you can come up with your own more detailed ideas for what might have happened at each of these points in Maggie's story.

What might that bullying have looked like? What might being accused of witchcraft have looked like and what might Maggie's final confession have looked like? What events might have happened? What are other people doing? Where might this have taken place? And what's going on in a bit more detail in each of these situations? Remembering, we're using our imagination here because none of these details are described to us in the book.

So pause the video and have a good imagining these three situations, these three points of Maggie's story in a bit more detail.

Well done.

Good thinking.

So maybe the bullying might have looked like this.

Perhaps Maggie's walking through the village, talking to herself when a group of children tease her and then she curses them as a result.

Maybe the accusation would be like this.

Maybe Maggie's asleep at night when a group of villagers burst into a cottage and accuse her of cursing their children, and then they take her away.

And maybe the confession might look like this.

Maybe Maggie realises there's no use in arguing any longer because she can't prove them wrong.

And so as a result she gives in and confesses.

Now I haven't given a lot of detail there, have I? But I've gone into a bit more detail about how each of these situations might have looked in Maggie's story.

Really well done for your thoughts too.

So we can imagine as well dialogue or speech between Maggie and the other villagers at these different points.

So if we take the idea of Maggie being arrested, here's an idea for what the dialogue might have looked like there.

Maybe the villagers said this, "Open the door, Maggie! We know you're in there!" And then Maggie could reply, "What do you lot want? I've done nothing to you.

Stop banging on my door!" "You're a witch, Maggie! Everyone heard you curse the children and now one of them's sick, just like you wanted!" "I told them to stop being a nuisance, that's all." I've tried to show the feelings and ideas that the two different groups of people here might have through their dialogue.

So how do you think that dialogue might have continued in this situation where Maggie's being accused of witchcraft and possibly arrested and taken away? Pause the video and how they go at imagining the rest of how that dialogue might look.

Well done.

Really good ideas.

Maybe the villagers said this, "Open this door now or we'll knock it down!" "All right, all right.

You've all known me for years, how can you call me a witch?" "Yes, you've always been strange.

You're the devil's wife, that's what you are!" "The devil's wife? I go to church every week just like you do.

This isn't right.

Please, just leave." So I'm trying to show Maggie's confusion in this moment, her lack of understanding of why this is happening to her, and almost her frustration at the fact that she's being accused of something she knows she hasn't done.

Hopefully you've done the same thing in your dialogue.

That's gonna really help you when we come to do our second task in a moment.

Well done.

Let's do our final task assessment.

We're going to work in groups of three and I want you to try and reenact our imagined version of Maggie's story from beginning to end with one person playing Maggie and two people playing the villagers.

Make sure you cover those key points that we've discussed, her being bullied in the village, her being accused of witchcraft, and her finally confessing.

And I want you to really focus on making the characters have dialogue and performing actions that show their feelings and thoughts at each moment.

So really focus in on the dialogue here like we just practised before.

And I want you to remember as you're doing this, that we're reenacting experiences of real people, which is a point Addie makes throughout the book, isn't it? So let's try to make sure we're being respectful to their experiences.

So instead of focusing on kind of the violent or graphic details you might have imagined in Maggie's story, I want you to really focus in on the dialogue between Maggie and the villagers to show the villager's motivations, Maggie's confusion and frustration, and all of the events that we're trying to detail in our drama here.

So pause the video and have a go acting out those three key events focusing in on the dialogue between Maggie and the characters.

Have a go.

Well done.

Really good job.

So here's an example of how that dialogue in the final scene of Maggie's story might sound.

So I'm just going to focus on the ending scene where Maggie finally confesses but you will have had a dialogue for the whole story.

Here's how my ending might have sounded.

"What do you have to say, witch? You're the devil's wife, don't deny it! Just look at you with your ragged clothes and your wild hair." Maybe Maggie would respond.

"I, I'm sorry, I just wanna be left alone.

I'll leave the village; I'll go away.

Just leave me be.

I've got nothing to do with the devil!" "Liar! What about all your neighbours who've testified against you? What about all the stories we've heard about you cursing our village?" "I just wanted them to leave me alone.

It wasn't real! I promise I'm a good Christian woman.

(sighs) Very well.

I could see it's no use.

I confess." So I've kind of gone quite fast at the end now, haven't I? You might have added some more details between the part of the story we've described and the confession towards the end.

But hopefully through your role play, you've started have an understanding of how these different characters are acting and their motivations.

Why are they acting in the way that they do? That's gonna really help you when we come to write in the future.

Well done.

So let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We've said that around 2,500 real people were executed in the Scottish witch trials and many more were put on trial.

We know that being accused of witchcraft would have been a terrifying ordeal, and it was hard to disprove.

Accusations were often used against vulnerable people who struggled to defend themselves.

We know that in "A Kind of Spark," Maggie's story is particularly important to Addie as it inspires her to keep fighting for the memorial.

And we know that we can try and empathise with historical characters to understand them better, and reenacting events respectfully can help us to do that.

Really well done for your effort in this lesson.

I hope you found it really interesting getting inside the heads of these different characters and I hope you'll find it really useful when we come to write in the future.

I'd love to see you again in a future lesson to build on what we've learned in this one.

Goodbye.