See events progress at The Flow of History
October 27, 2010
“You have to do more than memorize facts! Show me that you can analyze and connect these ideas!” How many times have we said things like this to our students? In the quest to develop higher-order thinking skills, The Flow of History can provide some visually captivating help.
Flow charts are the main attraction here. There are more than 200 in all, covering a lot of the most common topics in world history. The site’s creator sought to highlight cause-and-effect relationships, and The Flow of History does that beautifully. The charts use color and visuals to show the progression of events that led to, say, the rise of Greek democracy or the British conquest of India. And the design of the diagrams is as varied as the stories they tell. Sometimes events are shown in a linear way, but more often they double back into cycles, diverge into separate branches, and unite several events into one result. There is also a reading to go with each flow chart, so students can use the chart to help understand the reading, or vice versa.
There are plenty of possibilities for using The Flow of History. After seeing a few examples, students could create their own flow charts. Or, as the site’s creator suggests, they could focus on the big picture by summarizing a chart in one sentence. For some students, a visual model like this can turn a scattered mess of events into a sequence that makes sense.
