Reminder: Billy will be back from Construction Skills tomorrow to work with Mrs.Prentice’s class. There will be NO PE tomorrow, so you do not need kit!

Our challenge today was to re-write the history of ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’ using our own words. We had to focus on interesting vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation; which would not only give the main points, but also engage the reader.

Here is one example which we felt met most of the criteria…

‘The Scottish Enlightenment’ – James.H (P7)

  ‘Over 300 years ago a revolution swept across Scotland. This period of time in the 18th century, known as The Scottish Enlightenment, is often described as Scotland’s ‘Golden Age’. The Scottish people of that age excelled in many different fields of knowledge suchas economics and philosophy, and became world-renowned for those subjects. There were many different individuals who changed Scotland (and the world) forever. They came up with ideas to make the world a  better place; bear in mind these ideas were often controversial. Before the Enlightenment period Scotland was very poor. So how did we become so good?
  The first thing that helped change Scotland is that many of the scholars travelled abroad and brought back new ideas from their destinations. This helped to improve Scottish Universities. One example is the founders of the outstanding Edinburgh University medical school, who travelled to the world’s best medical school in Holland.
  Secondly, after the Reformation, the Reformers put schools in every parish so that people could read the Bible. The children were around nine years old and went to school for about four years. Also, when the parliaments united the Scottish people lost their political rights, and while that infuriated the country, it also meant the intellectuals didn’t have to take sides. In turn, that meant that there was a flow of free information.
  Finally, the Scottish universities were the best in the UK. They also had five of them- the most in the UK! The universities were open to ideas from across the globe which helped make them successful. In the 17th century the universities were only of minor significance, but by the 18th century they were changed fundamentally. Another change was that the universities had more than one teacher, known as ‘Professors’.
  All of these points- and many more- helped fuel the Scottish Enlightenment and shape the world as it is today. If Scotland were to have another golden age it would, once again, change the world forever. 300 years have passed and since then we still think about the time. I think that without the Enlightenment we would live in a very different world today.’

Check the Enlightenment video by clicking the link below:

Scottish Enlightenment BBC: CLICK HERE!

See you all tomorrow!
Mr.Cook, Mrs.MacLeod and Mrs.Prentice