Scots and Social Studies at Secondary School
4. Input 3
Activity 3
Cross-curricular historical focus
In this activity you will explore historical resources in the medium of Scots and strengthen knowledge about the historical development of the Scots language towards the outcomes of the Scots Language Award. You will use what you learn here again in Lesson 2 of the Application section.
Activity 3.A Historical Sources: Picts, Wars of Independence, James VI, Soldiers in WWI.
Work with these four historical sources and note your answers to the related tasks.
Source 1. Burghead. The Picts and the Battle of Dun Nechtain 685 A.D.
Read the piece on the Dig it! website and consider which year group you want to work with this text.
When reading, note down words you think would your learners should have a translation into English of – up to four per section. Depending on the year group you will be working with, you can then either look up these words yourself in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL) and create a vocabulary list for your learners, or you can use reading this text with your learners to create a dictionary skills activity where they look up the words themselves and compare their translations. Guidance on how to use the DSL can be found here.
Now devise five questions for your learners, to accompany the reading activity which will help them and you gauge their understanding of its key points.
Finally, a useful activity is to find words in the text that are the same as or similar to their English equivalent to help your learners appreciate the close connections between Scots and English. This activity can build learners’ confidence in reading Scots as they begin to understand the lack of a written standard in Scots and that reading a word out loud in Scots often helps understanding it.
For example, the word anley (only) can easily be decoded when speaking it loud and seen in context.
Whereas a word like coupit are harder to translate because they come from a different origin. Here pupils can learn to decide when they might need to use a dictionary to support their understanding.
Source 2. The Wars of Independence (source Rosemary Goring, 2007)
Read Source 2 and think about how you would introduce each source to your class, depending on the age group you’d be working with and the subject you are teaching. Ideally, you could provide some context and historical background to help your pupils appreciate these sources. With your learners you could use the same activities we are asking you to complete here.
Translate the first text in the source into English, again using the DSL where required for looking up words you do not understand. Ideally, you could try to keep the rhyming scheme abab with the last words in lines one and three and lines two and four of each stanza rhyming. Your rhymes do not have to have the same sounds in them as the Scots ones.
Read the second text in the source using the vocabulary help provided. Then compare the Scots and the English version of the third text in the source on the Wars of Independence. You might want to look up some of the Scots words you come across here and see whether the translator used different ones of the same in order to create a poetical text in English.
If appropriate, you could get your pupils to read the sources out loud to appreciate the Scots language and how it is used more completely. Then discuss with your class the appearance and vocabulary of the second and third source written in Early Scots (the Scots spoken and written before around 1450).
Make notes on how these and other sources you find, could enrich learning about the Wars of Independence.
Source 3. Scottish Parliament in the reign of James VI. (Rosemary Goring, 2007)
Click on the link above to access Source 3.
Check the meaning of the more unusual Middle Scots (Scots spoken from 1450 to 1700) words such as hines, layne, cameraige, quhairthrow, skayth. Where required, use the DSL for help.
Choose a year-group and devise three questions testing comprehension and the structure of 16th century society.
Source 4. Accounts of life during World War I in Scots (Jock Duncan 2018)
Click on the link above to access Source 4.
Consider how a History or Scottish Studies class could use Scots language resources such as these to enrich learning around the conditions in which soldiers fought in WWI? What specifically does the use of the Scots language add here?
Think about how you could use and teach the vocabulary from these sources. Pupils could again work with the dictionary and even create their own list of key vocabulary from the eye witness statements.
The language of the trenches for many Scottish soldiers would have been in broad Scots, and traditional music and song would have been key for raising the mood in such terrible conditions. In your view, how much does and should our History teaching reflect this important cultural element?
Compare your answer with our model answer.
Activity 3.B History and development of the Scots language
1. In this part of the activity you will engage with resources and information you will need to deliver the History and Development unit of the SQA Scots Language Award, in which learners need to explain the factors shaping contemporary Scots and explain the relationship between contemporary Scots and other languages. Your learners, depending on age group and subject area, could undertake a similar sequence of learning activities in your classroom.
a) Watch the Education Scotland video The History of the Scots Language. Get confident in the history of the language by constructing a timeline of the main events and key characters in the development of Scots.
b) Select any method to outline the positive and negative influences that impacted the development of the Scots language over time.
c) What do you think, how can a knowledge of the history of the Scots language boost the self-esteem of learners who speak Scots or want to learn and engage with Scots at school?
Compare your answer with our model answer.
2. Scots has many links with other languages, both due to common roots with other Germanic languages as well as exchanges of words through trade, migration and settlement.
Lesley Riddoch is a journalist, filmmaker, author and broadcaster who comments on Scottish politics and investigates links between Scotland and Nordic countries. In her book Blossom (Lesley Riddoch, 2013), she identifies links between Scots and other European languages.
Other good sources as listed in the Further Reading section of this unit, include Murison (1977), McClure (1988) and Millar (2020), which give many examples of Scots words and their links with languages such as Flemish (loon, gowf), French (douce, pooch, gigot), Norse languages (redd up, reek, biggin) and Latin (legal terms such as sederunt, interdict, homologate). Nicolaison (1976) is a classic text which deals with the influence of different languages on place names in Scotland.
Activity 3.C Learning Resource: Scots and other languages
Click on the link above to access the learning resource.
Your learners could undertake the same activity sequence as outlined below in your classroom. To help you prepare, undertake this yourself first of all.
Compare the phrase in Scots in the table with the same phrase used in the other European languages. Notice any similarities between the different languages. With different colours highlight any similarities between words.
Identify the languages which are most similar to Scots.
Compare your answer with our model answer.