The purpose of this master’s thesis was to determine the historical content present in the Decameron – the fundamental work of Italian medieval novella writing. Furthermore, we discussed teaching methods suitable for including this work in elementary school history lessons. The main topics present in Boccaccio’s work are: the decline of the old nobility and the rise of the merchants, the criticism of the immoral behaviour of a certain part of the clergy, the status of women, and the plague epidemic. The implementation of the Decameron into history lessons is possible with the method of verbal demonstration, the method of working with a written source and the experiential learning method. Two historical topics, the rise of merchants and the plague epidemic, were used in the history lessons as examples of the method of working with a written source. They were taught with two different methods: frontal teaching and group teaching. The last one also included providing a working sheet for each student. Students who work with a written source become more sensitive to perceiving subjective presentation of facts and show increased interest in the presented history topics. The seventh-grade national curriculum for history includes topics such as the nobility, the bourgeoisie, and the lives of the people in the medieval cities; the Decameron or its author are not mentioned. The nobility is the best-presented topic in the schoolbooks, while the opposite goes for the plague, the merchants, and the status of women. This master’s thesis emphasises the importance of the inclusion of written sources and literature in history lessons because of their positive influence on students: they enrich students’ knowledge and motivate them for further research.
What is more, the use of the Decameron, one of the classics of European literature, contributes to students’ general knowledge.
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