We’re Here Because We’re Here

(The Battle of the Somme, Documentary heritage submitted by United Kingdom and recommended for inclusion in
the Memory of the World Register in 2005.)

by Dr Martin Porter
Coordinator, Working Group Schools
Sub-Committee on Education and Research (SCEaR) IAC, UNESCO Memory of the World Programme

AGE

This lesson is aimed at students aged 12 (Grade 7/8)

AIM

The aim of this lesson is help the students to (a) develop their sense of the relationship between
the past and the present; (b) develop their oral history listening skills by transcribing a phrase
from a spoken/sung recording; (c) develop their visual literacy when presented with a primary
source; (d) deepen their understanding the difference between film and documentary, and (e) to
introduce them to an historical event known as ‘World War 1’.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The students will learn some basic visual literacy – be it training the strength of their memory’s
eye, or developing their sense of empiricism by having them search for and discover details in any
frame or series of frames which they can use as evidence to support their hypothesis.
The students will discover the ambiguous nature of primary sources as representations of
historical reality;

The students will deepen their understanding of the difference between fact and fiction,
documentary and film – all of which constitute a universal fundamental need in any global
citizen’s understanding of his or her relation to reality, or, in this case, historical reality.
TEACHER’S NOTE

This lesson plan is based on a short clip of film taken from an entire three-hour long film entitled
‘The Battle of the Somme’, a documentary heritage submitted by the United Kingdom and
recommended for inclusion on the UNESCO MoW Register in 2005.
(http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/mow/nomination_f
orms/united_kingdom_battle_of_the_somme.pdf)

The chosen film clip itself lasts about 20 seconds. The section I am referring to begins with the
huge explosion that took place on July 1st 1916 and signaled the beginning of the Battle of the
Somme. In what follows, and the sequence with which this activity is concerned, the film
purports to show the moment a group of soldiers ‘go over the top’ of the trench, under fire from
‘enemy’ fire somewhere from across the other side of ‘no man’s land’. The sequence ends a
couple of minutes later with the image of the soldiers walking through the barbed wire into no-
man’s land and one of them falling down after having been shot.

Students will no doubt find this film ‘too black and white’, ‘too silent’, and, in terms of action,
much too boring to sit through in its entirety. 1 Thus, my suggestion is to go immediately to Part
3 of the film and show them the twenty second clip from the section which purports to show the
first day of The Battle of the Somme.

Before showing the pupils the film, either give the children or allow them to discover in any one
of a variety of ways, the 5 accompanying facts.2
Before playing the students the chosen section from the film, they should be informed, in one
way or another, that what they are about to see represents the first time in history that a war had
ever been filmed.3

Once the students have been shown the film, you can ask them what happens. Usually someone
will say that it is a film of soldiers being killed. The teacher (or a student who has been to chosen
to be ‘in the know’) can then announce that the film is a ‘fake’. This claim acts as a potential
challenge to the reliability of the students’ visual literacy (akin to those drawings that are at one
and the same time of a rabbit and of an old lady). This challenge usually arises their curiosity and
increases their desire to see the film again, so as they can verify with their own eyes, or just relive
whether they were right or wrong.

Therefore, at this point each child is wondering whether they are one of those who were
deceived, or ‘got it wrong’. When the teacher clearly has the class’s attention in this way, the
revelation is made. That revelation will point out that not only is this a primary source in the
form of the first ever documentary film ever made of a war, but this primary source includes a
‘fake scene’ and that this film reveals the first time that a ‘fake scene’ had been inserted in a
documentary – at which point it will be necessary to explain (and/or demonstrate further) the

1These genuine and honest reactions provide very useful and much neglected doorways into much needed historical
reflection around the history of cinema and audience literacy and audience expectations.
2 These dates will be used elsewhere in the History curriculum. For that I would refer readers to the future

publications of the pedagogical packages.

3 To help them understand this it might be helpful to point out that the moving cinematic image was first presented

to a large public only some twenty years previously, in France, in 1895, by the Lumière Brothers, whose archive of
films has been inscribed on the MoW International Register, as have the archives of the moving picture show of
Emile Reynaud – a fact that allows for the development of a unit of inquiry, richly infused with MoW material, based
on the History of Cinema. It might also be useful to point out that this film was something of the Harry Potter of its
day, for it did go on to see an extraordinary success, being shown in cinemas up and down the country, as well as in a
private showing for King George V of England at Windsor Castle.
difference between film and documentary (or perhaps even develop this along the
aforementioned lines of an entire unit of inquiry on the History of Cinema).

At this point the students are informed that the film is to be shown for a second time and that
the activity they have to carry out involves them watching the film for a second time (or third
time depending on how the class reacts) and trying to discover the evidence in the clip that
suggests that this clip is a re-enactment, or a ‘fake scene’.

Once they see it for the second time (perhaps with the guiding hand of the teacher pausing or
replaying the most important frames that provide the most telling evidence), most of them
usually see two clear signs that the soldiers are acting – the first one being the soldier who slides
down the bank of mud and then moves after he is supposed to be dead, and the second one
being one of the men who falls down in the barbed wire pretending to be dead, only then to be
seen moving his foot and looking back at the camera, as though he were listening to instructions
from the director.

Having performed that activity, the teacher can then listen to the reactions of the students and
take them in the direction that he or she sees fit, depending upon the structure of the curriculum.
For example, this activity could provide the doorway into a course that could go off in many
directions. Some might wish to use it as a way into the History of World War 1. This could be
generated by a question such as ‘why were these men fighting in this war?’ (This question is
implicit in the title given to the lesson (We’re Here Because We’re Here). That question could provide
a platform on which to explore the universal concept of causality through the famous issue of the
causes of World War 1. Similarly, other teachers might prefer to use this event as a way of
developing the student’s skills in what some teachers feel is the much over-looked skill of
empathy, by having the students examine in detail the material reality of World War 1, a task
most often done through a study of the most iconic aspect of World War 1, the trench system.4

Or one could go on to use other parts of the film to help the students understand the importance
of the universal concept of ‘context’ and how knowledge of the context of any primary source
helps one carry out the universal process of interpreting a primary source. Thus, for example,
using the filmed explosion that began the Battle of the Somme alongside other clips showing
soldiers stacking up missiles, could then be interpreted in terms of the famous ‘missile crisis’
which brought about the fall of the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, and formed part of the
reasons for the creation of this piece of filmed war propaganda – ‘war propaganda’ being yet
another universal phenomenon.

The way in which this particular activity could then go on to be developed might also depend
upon the relationship to World War 1 which the history of the country in which the children are
studying traditionally has. The Great War is not a war which is seen in the same way in Finland or
China as it is in France, or Germany. Whatever the case, one of the virtues of this exercise lies in
the fact that it does not make a fetish of either the entire film or the MoW register. It is just one
example of a very simple, brief way in which a tiny fragment of the riches from the material on
the MoW register could be presented as a small part of, in this case, a History course, to any
group of school children aged 11 (or perhaps older). It is in this way that the world’s school
children could be educated around a culture of common universal memories. How they would
react to seeing this film, or learning about the fabricated nature of this piece of filmed reality is

4For one British school headmaster convinced of the need for developing skills of empathy see
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/andrew-halls-kings-college-school-wimbledon-
private-school-pupils-to-take-empathy-lessons-as-a7612211.html
another question, and one which could be left open, all the more so given the dialectical principle
upon which the teaching would be based.

Indeed, one way of performing the latter dialectical approach might be to show them the clip
from Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 film Paths of Glory, in which the soldiers are filmed going over the
top. This will provide them with the chance to reflect upon the ways in which a piece of fiction
can actually be more realistic than a piece of documentary. The distinction between fact and
fiction being the ‘universal’ at the heart of this lesson.
WE’RE HERE BECAUSE WE’RE HERE5

PART 1 : HERE AND NOW? OR THERE AND THEN?

What seems strange about these two photographs? Explain your answer (5 points)

(We're here because we're here' conceived and created by Jeremy Deller in collaboration with Rufus
Norris and commissioned by 1418NOW. Courtesy of the Artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster
Ltd, Glasgow Photo: CJ Griffiths Photography)

(We're here because we're here' conceived and created by Jeremy Deller in collaboration with Rufus
Norris and commissioned by 1418NOW. Courtesy of the Artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster
Ltd, Glasgow. Photo: Eoin Carey.)
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5The students could go to this website and watch some of the clips there
https://becausewearehere.co.uk/
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Here is a song by one of these soldiers - a 19 year-old boy named Edward Dwyer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA730QtjOBE

What words can you hear Edward singing? Write down any words or phrases you understand. (5
points)
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A few days after he recorded this song, Edward was killed in action, at Guillemont, on 3rd
September 1916.
WE’RE HERE BECAUSE WE’RE HERE

PART 2 : FACT GRENADES

Here are five facts. Each one is a hand grenade. To charge the grenade you must know the fact.

First World War began in 1914

The Battle of the Somme took place in France from July to December 1916.

World War 1 ended in 1918.

The peace treaty was signed in the Palace of Versailles, in France, in 1919.

18 million people died, and 23 million people were wounded in World War 1.6

ACTIVITY: Colour, then cut up these facts, then teach them to your neighbour. (10 points)

6 The only disputable fact amongst them are the figures relating to casualties – and that is something that can be used
as teaching material for helping them understand the nature of statistics. Though all of these could be the source of a
subsequent analysis. For example, the first fact could, at another time, be used to help them understand the
indeterminate nature of some historical dates. After all, when exactly did this ‘World War’ break out? Or when did it
become a ‘World War’?
WE’RE HERE BECAUSE WE’RE HERE

PART 3: ‘OVER THE TOP’

1) Watch this short film clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l34JJma9kv4
(start at c. 1minute 9 seconds and watch until 1 minute 29 seconds)

2) Write down what you can remember seeing in the film clip.

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3) Watch the clip a second time and write down what you see – if you see something
different

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