Values Project - History Lesson Plan Title:
Letters from the Front
Year Group: 9
Keywords:
Warfare
Resources:
Video
"All quiet on the Western Front", Fact-sheet
Teaching and Learning Styles:
Group discussion, video, letter writing
Values: Valuing others, Forgiveness
| Context in which the lesson is set |
Courses of World War One.
Strengths and weaknesses of alliances in Europe using fact-sheets and
worksheets . Outbreak of trench warfare and the failure of the
Schlieffen
plan. Personal implication of life in the trenches - sanitation, fear,
injury, death, living conditions. |
| What the lesson is about |
Understanding how the value of
human life is threatened in warfare and how people are likely to respond to
that threat. Understanding and forgiveness were separated in pupils minds,
which was an important advance in thinking. |
| Expected outcomes |
A deeper understanding of the
personal implications of warfare. |
| Details of Teacher and Pupil Activities |
Watch sections of "All quiet on
the Western Front". Class discussion on the implications of an incident in
the film where one soldier kills another in a shell hole.
Phase 1
Pupils then write from one of three perspectives:
- An officer writing to the parents of someone killed on duty
- A soldier writing to the parents of someone he has killed
- A soldier writing home about what he feels about having killed someone
Phase 2
Letters were exchanged so that each pupil received a letter that had been
written in Phase 1, but from a different perspective than the one they
wrote. They then wrote a reply to that letter
Each letter was then read out to the class and discussion was carried out
about a) historical inaccuracies b) (In) appropriateness of the emotional
response |
| Extension Work |
None |
|
All quiet on the Western Front! |
