ASSIGNMENT 1: THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY
BACKGROUND
They shall not grow old,
As we who are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We shall remember them.
Lest we forget.
The war can be said to have begun with a bullet to the neck of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand from the pistol of a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist on St. Vitus Day, June 28, 1914. By the time it ended four years later on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, some nine million soldiers had died.
It originally was known simply as The Great War. That, however, was before the dreams that it might become the "war to end all wars" was shattered within a generation. But if the imagery of The Western Front, No Man's Land, The Mud of Passchendale, The Beaches of Gallipoli, Big Bertha, The Poppy, The Cenotaph and The Last Post has now been joined by that of The Black Umbrella, The Battle of Britain, The Bone Fields of Stalingrad, The Beaches of Normandy, The Panzer Tank, The Kamikaze Dive, The Gates of Auschwitz and The Mushroom Cloud of Hiroshima, the legacies of World War I remain with us today.
PROCEDURE
This lesson is designed as an introduction to The Great War. It is divided into three sections. You are asked to complete each of these in order.
STEP ONE
READING/VIEWING ASSIGNMENT:
Watch the
BBC WORLD WAR ONE "MOVIE" and read the accompanying text.The BBC web-site attempts not only to present information, but also to capture the feel of what life was like for the British soldier on the Western Front.
Start the multimedia presentation by clicking on "Play The Movie" and then on the Chapter 1 title. After each short movie segment a still screen will appear with a contemporary diary entry in the middle. Read the diary segment and then click the different fact-file topics listed in the left margin. When you have completed these, click first "Continue" and then "Next Movie" on the right of the screen. You will be taken by the computer to the next chapter.
The complete list of chapter titles for the web-site is as follows:
CHAPTER 1: Volunteering And Recruitment
CHAPTER 2: Night Patrol
CHAPTER 3: Life In The Trenches
CHAPTER 4: Over The Top
CHAPTER 5: Gas Attack
CHAPTER 6: Injuries And Shellshock
WRITING ASSIGNMENT:
There is no writing assignment for this part of the lesson plan. The purpose of the exercise is to help to frame context for the sections to follow. You may, however, wish to refer back to this site when completing the War And Memory Encyclopedia.
STEP TW0
READING AND WRITING ASSIGNMENT
(30% of grade):Choose one web-site from the list below and spend at least half an hour carefully browsing in it. Then complete a web-site review using the attached WEB-SITE REVIEW FORM.
THE WEB SITES:
World War I: Trenches On The Web -- This is the place to start for learning about the Great War. Not the most logically-structured of web-sites but there is a wealth of fascinating material here.
Great War And Shaping Of The Twentieth Century: Although the interviews are the best feature of the PBS site, other material can be found here.
Legends And Traditions Of The Great War: A virtual exhibit from Trenches on the Web.
World War One: A concise but informative textbook overview from the British-based History Learning Site.
Art Of The First World War : A UNESCO-sponsored exhibit that brings together a wide range of Great War art.
Encyclopedia Of The First World War: An introduction to the war from the Spartacus educational site.
STEP THREE
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
(70% of grade):Use the above web-sites and internet research to design a Great War And Modern Memory Encyclopedia.
The encyclopedia should be 3+ double-spaced pages in length and should consists of a few sentences apiece on at least 15 of the terms listed in the table below.
The two purposes of the encyclopedia should be to give the reader a feel for the nature of World War One and to provide you with an opportunity to analyze some of the symbols and images associated with the war. This is not a cut-and-paste exercise in which you merely assemble massive amounts of factual material about World War One.
Instead, try to personalize your encyclopedia. Be both concise and imaginative as you do your best to use your selected terms to offer a portrait of World War I and to explore its meanings and legacies.
Pick at least two terms from each of the categories and arrange your encyclopedia in overall alphabetical order.
THE TERMS
|
Symbols And Images Of The War |
Miscellaneous |
The Aftermath |
Individuals |
|
Ambulance Drivers |
Armenian Massacres |
Canadian War Memorial |
Archduke Franz Ferdinand |
|
Big Bertha |
Balfour Declaration |
Erich Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front |
Kemal Ataturk |
|
Blighty Wounds |
Beaumont Hamel and Newfoundland |
Gallipoli And Australian National Identity |
Lord Beaverbrook |
|
Diggers |
Easter Rising, Dublin, 1916 |
Influenza Pandemic (1918-19) |
Edith Cavell |
|
The Hun |
Passchendaele |
League Of Nations |
Winston Churchill |
|
"In Flanders Fields," John McRae |
Propaganda Posters |
London Cenotaph |
Georges Clemenceau |
|
"No Man's Land" |
Somme |
Menin Gate |
Arthur Currie |
|
Over The Top |
Tanks |
Remembrance Day |
Otto Dix |
|
Pals Battalions |
Verdun |
Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier (Canada) |
Douglas Haig |
|
Poison Gas |
Zeppelins |
Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier (France) |
Adolf Hitler |
|
Poppy |
Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier (United Kingdom) |
Kaiser Wilhelm II |
|
|
Shell Shock |
Versailles Treaty |
T.E. Lawrence |
|
|
Taxis Of The Marne |
Vimy Memorial |
Rosa Luxemburg |
|
|
Trench Foot |
Mata-Hari |
||
|
Trench Rats |
John Pershing |
||
|
Trenches |
Gavrilo Princip |
||
|
U-Boats |
Baron Manfred von Richthofen |
||
|
Voie Sacree |
Siegfried Sassoon |
||
|
Western Front |
Sergeant Alvin York |
*** Please contact me if you have any problems accessing the different sites associated with Assignment 1 or if you encounter difficulties in running any of these programmes on your computer.
This software is licensed
under the
BC Commons License
.