How to Condense History

History, like a speaker at a political function, can be long-winded. It's hard sometimes to teach a meaningful lesson without beginning to drone on and on; by the time you're finished only one person is still paying attention and everyone else all left 25 minutes ago. So how can you keep students' attention and in their seats? Call me Reader's Digest, 'cause it's time to condense those lessons! Condensing a long subject is probably your best bet to make sure enough information can be relayed to your audience without boring the crap out of them, and the whole reason we had condensed readers in the first place proves that humans are impatient and lazy and won't listen to something they couldn't read on their hand. For students, I've already covered how to pay attention and take notes in history class to make it easier (and even a little more fun); now it's the teachers' turns to be taught (some nice repetition never hurt anyone, did it?)


To begin, we need a really long subject in history. So, how about the Hundred Years' War? This European war was technically World War I, but humans weren't that smart back then, so the name stuck. It literally lasted over one hundred years (116 years) and was a conflict between England and France that spiraled out of control in the 1300s-1400s. It ended up including many of the European countries surrounding the Big Two, and while it was fought for who had claim to the French thrown, in the end only territories were taken and a lot of people died. This war is a factor in what led to European Christians splitting into different factions, like the Catholics and Lutherans.

There's your example. Did you see how I fit the whole 116 years of this war into one paragraph, mentioned dates, locations, and regions, and gave cause, effect, and outcome? Sure, I could've gone into specifics, like how Isabella of France was trying to go around a principle banning female succession after Charles IV died by giving it to her son Edward III, which the French got pissed at, so they intervened in Edward's attack on Scotland (did I mention he was English?) and got him pissed, then the Battle of Crecy decided...

Did I lose you yet? There is simply too much information about the Hundred Years' War to fit into a single lesson. By the time you got to the end of the first quarter of the war (which the English won), it would be empty in your classroom, because class ended 2 hours ago.

I follow 4 steps when condensing history: What Caused It, When Did It Happen, Why Did It Happened, What Resulted From It. If you can get these four parts out of a long event or subject, you could fit an entire era of World History within the first half of a semester. If you think you're going too fast, don't stop condensing; you'll have enough time after the lesson to answer questions and go into specifics when your lesson isn't the length of a seminar. Basically, don't be a bore-condense more!
God, that was awful. Just make sure you condense your lessons!

-Pharaoh Noh-Tyep (Reader's Digest)