Historica Canada Education Portal

Procedures:

This presentation would be on Remembrance Day.

PREPARATION LEADING TO THE PERFORMANCE:

1. Each of five students researches an individual who died in action in Europe and whose body is buried in a Commonwealth War Cemetery.

2. Each student prepares a written and illustrated presentation on his/her chosen individual who was lost in action in Europe. They will use PowerPoint for the illustration, and a written document to be read at the assembly while the PowerPoint is being shown. The presentation must be relevant to the soldier’s life. The audience must gain knowledge about that individual who gave his life so many years ago.

3. A sixth student completes a short written paper and PowerPoint presentation on Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

4. A seventh student interviews a veteran from the city who is willing to introduce the Remembrance Day Ceremony, and both will work on a PowerPoint presentation that will be delivered while the veteran speaks.

5. Each headstone is inscribed with the name, date, birth date and place and a significant fact about the individual soldier.

6. Headstones are placed in a semicircle on the stage or in the classroom.

7. There is a candle and display of poppies in front of each headstone.

8. A student will stand behind each headstone, and behind and above the student’s head is a white screen.

9. Another student operates the preprogrammed PowerPoint presentations of five soldiers. That student will project the presentations onto the white screen while each student speaks about his/her soldier. The research on the individual lost in war will include the following:

a. name
b. birthplace & date of birth
c. family
d. training
e. role in the war(s)
f. what happened, i.e. how was the individual lost in action?
g. who was left behind?
h. others’ information about the individual?

THE PERFORMANCE

1. A veteran will introduce his experience in the war. Pictures of battles scenes will be depicted on the screen.

2. The light then turns to the first student who introduced his/her veteran, while pictures are displayed in the background.

3. The light then shifts to the second, third, fourth and fifth students, who will introduce their soldiers in turn.

4. Upon the completion of five researched veterans, one student lights candles in front of the headstones and reads John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

5. After the reading of the poem, if possible, other students can give presentations on significant Canadian military engagements or war memorials. There is then a minute of silence and the playing of the Last Post.