Why is CHRONOLOGY important?

Read the following popular fairy tale…

Why is chronology important? Can you recognise the fairy-tale? Does the story make sense? What do you notice that is different about the story? How could this story be improved so that people can understand it? Now you re-arrange the story so it makes sense…

Why do we need to have things in date order? For stories to make sense it is important to put them in the order that they happened. History is like a long story so by placing things that happened in date order it helps us (the historian) follow the story and have a clear understanding of what happened and when. Chronology can be a difficult thing to understand as it has rules that you have to remember in order to be able to put dates in the right order. We’ll look at these rules later

Task In your pairs you each have 30 seconds to tell the person next to you why chronology is important Now you have 60 seconds to write you explanation in you book (you may can use the example of the story to help you if you want to)

The grandmother lived out in the wood and as Little Red Riding Hood entered the wood, a wolf met her and asked her where she was going to. Red Riding Hood was not afraid of the wolf and told him she was going to visit her grandmother. The wolf started to think about how hungry he was and how good a meal this little girl would be. The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother's bed, and ate her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap, laid himself in bed. There little girl who was given girl a little riding hood of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else; so she was always called 'Little Red Riding Hood.' One day her mother said to her: 'Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill and weak, and they will do her good. As the wolf was thinking this Little Red Riding Hood had spotted some flowers deep in the woods and so ran off to collect them for her grandmother. The wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house and knocked at the door. A while later a hunter was just passing the house, and thought to himself: 'How the old woman is snoring! I must just see if she wants anything.' So he went into the room, and when he came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it. Sometime later Little Red Riding Hood arrived at her grandmother’s cottage but was surprised to find the cottage door open. She entered the cottage and called out to her grandmother but received no answer. She then made her way in to her grandmother’s bedroom and there lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and looking very strange. The hunter took out his knife and opened up the wolf. Inside the wolf’s stomach he saw the little red riding hood and then the little girl sprang out, crying: 'Ah, how frightened I have been! How dark it was inside the wolf.' 'Oh! grandmother,' she said, 'what big ears you have!' 'All the better to hear you with, my child,' was the reply. 'But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!' she said. 'All the better to see you with, my dear.' 'But, grandmother, what large hands you have!' 'All the better to hug you with.' 'Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!' 'All the better to eat you with!' And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of bed and swallowed up Red Riding Hood. The wolf had managed to have two good meals but was very sleepy after all the food and so decided to rest in the grandmother’s comfortable bed.