Multiple Perspectives Lesson For the final lesson in the WWI unit of my 9th grade Honors World History

courses, I set up an activity in which students were placed into groups of 5-6 students and then rotated around a series of six stations, each with a different primary or secondary source document/s related the First World War. At each station groups were given an allotted amount of time to read the material at the station, discuss it with their group members, and then answer a few corresponding questions collaboratively before rotating to the next station. I left it up to the students to decide how they would read the document at each station (e.g. individually, one person reads the rest listen, popcorn reading, etc.), but stressed to the class that I wanted every student involved in discussion and that each student would need to turn in a copy of their answers to the questions. Four of the stations readings consisted of one or two short poems written my men who served in the British Army during the First World War. These included the poems Anthem for Doomed Youth and Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen and Absolution, Does It Matter?, and Survivors by Siegfried Sassoon. Another station contained excerpts from Robert Graves, author of I, Claudius and veteran of the First World War, autobiographical account, Goodbye to All That. The final station was a short, informative reading from BBC about shellshock and the First World War. Through this activity, my goal was for students to gain a greater understanding of war and its impact from the voices of those who were damned to meet its horrors face to face. Two of the Sassoon poems, Absolution and Does It Matter?, were included in the same station. Absolution was written just prior to the war, while Does It Matter? was written after Sassoons return from the front. The two poems have very distinctive tones and reflect two very different attitudes towards war. Questions

for these poems included, What tone does Sassoon have throughout Does It Matter? What can that tell us about his attitude towards war at this point in time? and Has Sassoons opinion of war evolved from Absolution to Does It Matter? If so, how? This particular station was designed to show students how the romanticized notions of war that hypnotized European youth at the turn of the 20th century were swiftly shattered by the horrific realities they were faced with on the front. Soldiers perspectives before the war were very different from their perspectives afterwards. The station with excerpts from Robert Graves autobiography was designed to show students how soldiers perspectives on war differed vastly from that of civilians. British citizens on the home front, much like the soldiers prior to war, were possessed by a warmadness, no doubt due to a romanticized and sanitized conception of warfare afforded by their removal from the fighting. This perspective was also propagated by propaganda and government censorship of news directly from the front. For this reason, a significant disconnect existed between civilians and soldiers returning home. Civilians were unable to comprehend soldiers attitudes and psychological afflictions, while soldiers commonly felt misunderstood, betrayed, and abandoned by civilians and their naivety, leaving them angry and resentful. Questions posed to students at this station included: Why do you think soldiers had difficulty interacting with civilians upon their return from the front? and What sorts of interaction did soldiers returning from battle have with civilians?. Nearly all of the poems and literature also offered insight into how soldiers were affected physically and psychologically by the war and how this dualistic trauma impacted soldiers lives after the war. Questions such as, How do war injuries affect soldiers life after they return home?, How has witnessing the horrors of war affected the poet?, and

How did Graves war experiences interrupt his transition back to civilian life? were designed to have students consider the lasting wounds created by war in the lives of those authors, poets, and an entire generation of men. In addition, students would learn to read and analyze poetry, work together with their classmates to reach a more refined level of understanding Throughout the station activity, which took two class periods to complete, I did my best to constantly move around the classroom, using my proximity to help keep students on task, encourage students to discuss the readings, and help guide students through the interpretation of the literature and understanding and answering the questions. Overall I thought the activity was engaging and productive for students. Many students needed guidance in discerning the imagery created by a couple of the poems and some of the terms in the literature needed further explanation from me. Discerning the tone of the poems was another area in which students required some assistance. I do think the lesson was successful in introducing students to multiple perspectives. Through my discussion with students and my review of their question answers, it was clear that students were able to discern a distinct difference in poetry written before the war and the poetry written after soldiers military service. Students recognized the difference in language, tone, and message in the poems. Similarly, with some guidance and clarification from me, I thought the majority of students were able to read the excerpts from Graves autobiography and understand why interaction between veterans and civilians was anywhere from difficult to impossible due to vastly different impressions of war. Students demonstrated their synthesis of these themes and concepts overwhelmingly in their writing assignments, which directly followed this lesson.

While I felt most of the students were doing what I asked of them during the station activity, I wish there was a way to ensure that students were actually discussing the literature with one another. Some students simply read the material to themselves and began answering the questions individually, without ever interacting with their peers. Perhaps this was my fault and resulted from me attempting to make a group activity out of a lesson that could have been done individually. However, I do think that discussion was vital to achieving a more refined level of understanding of the material and its significance. Rather than making the lesson a station activity in which I constantly moved around the room monitoring the stations and students participation and progress, the lesson might have been better had I structured it so that students read each piece individually and we then discussed it as an entire class. The stations did allow me to cover the material much more quickly, which was a positive considering time management was one of my weakest points throughout student teaching. Had I had more time, I might have chosen to discuss each poem, excerpt, or article in a class wide forum.