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Passchendaele Education Guide

The guide's purpose is to enhance your students’ learning and appreciation of the pivotal role that this 1917 battle played within Canadian history. The questions and activities of the guide also aim to have students examine issues and situations from an individual, humanistic point of view as well as from a macro perspective.

Structured around five primary sources from the First World War, this guide asks students to think and to empathize as they analyze and deconstruct those pieces of...

World War One Recruitment Posters


Overview


When Canada entered the First World War in 1914, men of all ages enlisted by the thousands. However, this zeal waned as reports of casualty rates arrived home. Recruitment posters were an integral part of encouraging men and women to enlist at all points between 1914 and 1918. They appealed to the many motivations for enlistment and used various propaganda techniques to achieve their goal. In this activity, students will examine reasons for enlistment, recruitment posters, and...

War Art in the First World War and the Second World War


Overview


The impact of the First World War and the Second World War on artists and the art they produced cannot be denied. Along with everything else in Western society, the creators of art and the art they created post-war were much different than anything that had come before 1914. This lesson is about the depiction of war and its aftermath by artists affected by the conflicts. They may or may not have been participants.

Aims


To have students understand the nature of the art produced...

Soldier Poetry of the First World War


Overview


Students learn more of the First World War by way of a study of the Canadian, British, and American soldier poets that served in France and Belgium.

Aims


Students will search and read the poetry of their soldier poet. It is hoped that they will choose a poem or two that appeals to them and ones in which they can examine word choice, imagery, mood, and figurative language. The pair of students will research and write a biography of their soldier poet. The aim here is that the students...

First World War Newspaper


Overview


Students create a newspaper, from a distinct perspective, that exemplifies an event of the First World War. This project can be modified to the Second World War. The full assignment is attached below.

Aims


Students will gain a greater understanding and appreciation of a specific aspect of the Great War. Students will gain competence is print presentation methods. Other goals can be added to this project to meet specific teacher's needs and curricular outcomes.

Background


This project...

First World War Poetry Analysis


Overview


The lesson allows students to gain a better understanding of the trenches and the effects of chlorine gas on the soldiers through the use of poetry through an analysis of the poem "Dulce et Decorum est" by Wilfred Owen.

Aims


The aim of the lesson is to show how horrific war was for the soldiers that fought in the First World War. It also shows the horrors of the gas attack as witnessed by a soldier, Owen, who served in the war. The poem brings a different dimension to the study of...

Recruitment During the First World War


Overview


The students will be presented this assignment as one option in their First World War research project. This assignment is designed to appeal to the students in the class who are visually minded. They will research primary documents that are, for the most part, in picture form. They will use text only to reinforce the information they get from the pictures and to review material already covered. At this point, students should have a basic understanding of Canada’s role in the First...

Remembrance: Understanding Canadian History Through Literature


Overview


A book club novel study for senior academic English and/or History students focusing on Canada’s role – at home and abroad - in the two world wars.

Aims

The purposes of this unit are to allow students:

  • to share, with a small group of peers, their experience with a Canadian war novel
  • to learn how literature serves as a valuable expression and record of history
  • to recognize and express how literature presents the stories of Canada differently from historic records or history texts
  • to...

Remembrance Day: Integrated Arts Lesson Plan


Background


Start this activity by introducing your students to Canadian writer John McCrae with the Heritage Minute about his poem "In Flanders Field" and to the Unknown Soldier by reading "Waiting in Line" from Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul (text below).

"
Waiting in Line"

As I approached the Peace Tower at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa I saw it: a line of orderly, polite, patient, Canadians - waiting. Without a word, I joined the line and many more followed. The young man in front...

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