It allows them to see that history is both contested and constructed, their teachers play an active part in creating history choosing what to include and more importantly what to leave out - meaning they have every right to contest and debate what they study.

This culminated in students pitching a new enquiry for me to consider adding into Year 9 next year. Although lessons like these take time away from content, I think they are vital in allowing students the space to consider the nature of the subject they study.

We then broadened this conversation to consider why students studied what they studied, combining ideas around my personal interests, scholarship, time and their cultural context.

If you want to use the epic I use this version from David Wisniewski:
www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/produc...

If you want a starting point for the Epic, some resources I've used are below, as per any feedback is much appreciated :)

drive.google.com/drive/folder...

They reveal aspects of power and transmission of history in Year 7, different methods of colonial control towards the end of Year 8 and showcasing the different ways in which Africans expressed their independence in Year 9.

Therefore, the epic in its different forms and what larger trends these forms represent can be touched on across an entire key stage.

It was a deliberate choice to write it down at this time, designed to showcase citizens of a new independent Mali the glories of their past and help foster a sense of national unity in a country of over a dozen ethnic groups, the exact same challenge Sundiata faced.

By 1960, Modibo Keita was the first President of a newly independent Mali and the same year he became President the Epic was written down for the very first time in its history.

A young student, Modibo Keita, attended the school as the play was performed and instead of inspiring a sense of Franco-Malian culture, the story of the glory of his homeland helped fuel a sense of Malian nationalism.

This marked a huge change in the transmission of the epic and with it a new purpose as the French looked to use it to create a sense of joint Franco-Malian culture but there was one person in the audience who took it very differently...

The epic remained in oral form until 1937 by which time Mali was part of French West Africa. The Epic entered it's latest performative role at a French school named École William Ponty. Here it was performed on stage by multiple people for the first time in over 700 years.

The story is also passed to Mansa Musa's court through oral history and the storytelling power of griots, the personal historians of Mansas'. Therefore, it provides the chance for students to meaningfully encounter a different form of history production and transmission.

Secondly, it provides vital context to Mansa Musa's power meaning his immense wealth can be better contextualised from Sundiata's founding blocks.

It's a great story that I was first introduced to by an amazing tutor at university but I think it has real potency throughout KS3. Firstly, in Year 7 it's a fascinating origin story of one of the great medieval empires in itself.

Sundiata, the son of Lion King and Buffalo Queen, grows in strength in exile despite his early challenges. He returns and saves his rightful kingdom becoming the first Mansa of Mali, uniting the surrounding kingdoms into one empire that lasted through to Mansa Musa and beyond.

The epic itself tells the tale of Sundiata a mute boy unable to walk who is exiled from the Mandinka kingdom in modern day Mali which he was due to inherit.

If you would like to have a spy at any of the resources please find them linked below, let me know if you have a go at teaching it, any feedback always appreciated.

drive.google.com/drive/folder...

As an outcome I got students to pitch an extra episode to Netflix's How to become a tyrant. Episode 4: Show your power!