Teaching World War I in the 21st Century 1 | Page 24

and so intractable? How did propaganda play a role? How did soldiers cope with the horror and brutality? What did they think about the war at the time and in the years to come? The answers to these questions can be found in the innumerable primary sources produced by participants and witnesses. Memoirs and letters, poems and songs, photographs and paintings from the famous to the obscure provide teachers opportunities to approach introducing their classrooms to World War I from virtually any angle. Thanks to the Internet, where teachers once struggled to find quality primary sources for their students, today the challenge often lies in choosing which outstanding resources to introduce in the limited time available. One solution is to let students select a topic to study in depth while the class as a whole examines the war at the macro level. For individual students, their chosen topics provides the “hook” that captures their interest and inspires them to learn more about the larger historical picture. Potential micro-level topics include: • Daily life in the trenches • Tactics of trench warfare/trench construction • Gas warfare • The development and use of the machine gun • The development and use of the tank • The impact of the U.S. entry into the war • The impact of the Russian withdrawal from the war • The use of aircraft • The role of women • African-American soldiers • World War I medicine • Communications: radio, runners, telegraph, and pigeons 20 Essays & Resources Zimmermann telegram as received by the German ambassador to Mexico, January 19, 1917. • War dogs/Military animals • Leadership/Leaders: Pershing, Foch, Petain, etc. • U-boats • “The Lost Battalion” • Sergeant York This approach, allowing students to choose a microlevel topic for in-depth study, is of course entirely compatible with participation in the National History Day program, another means of motivating and inspiring students to excellence. But while there are many topics that lend themselves to the NHD program, few areas of study offer the combination of a broad variety of micro topics and macro-level clarity that one finds in military history.