Teaching World War I in the 21st Century 1 | Page 57

• Teacher Directed Learning–Give students a copy of the Linman Diary entries and the A Soldier at War chart.

• Instruct students to read the Linman Diary entries. It covers a few weeks at war for one American soldier.

Explain that the chart is to help them keep track of what he did on a daily basis at war, and also what sorts
of things he thought about while at war.

• Use the chart to keep track of what Linman mentioned each day, so that by the end of the lesson, we will

have an idea of what an average day looked like. The “totals” box should be the total number of days that
he either mentioned or experienced each topic. Have the students read and complete the chart.

• Transition–Students now have an idea of what an average day for this artilleryman looked like from September
to October 1918. They should now produce two paragraphs.

• The first paragraph should explain Linman’s average day. What sorts of things did he do frequently?

What did he only do sparingly? What made him happy? What upset him? This paragraph should give us
a snapshot of what we could expect if we were to swap places with h im. Students should use at least four
references to the diary and the frequency of events, and should use two direct quotes from the diary to
prove their point.

• The second paragraph should be a personal reflection. Is this what you expected to read? If so, what parts
did you anticipate hearing about? If not, what did you anticipate seeing more of? Less of?

• Transition–After students complete writing their paragraphs, the teacher will distribute the Precise Paragraph
Rubric. Explain to the students that they will exchange papers with a neighbor. We will be peer-evaluating the
first paragraph, the informational one.

• Using the Rubric, students should put an X in the box each time they see the appropriate information.
They should then total up the number of points that their peers get, out of a possible 10.

• When they are finished, they should get their paragraphs and grading rubrics back, and from there,
correct their paragraphs.

• Once students complete this activity, they should exchange papers to get their original paragraphs back.

They should make the corrections indicated in the rubric. (For instance, if missing a quote or reference to
the diary, insert material to correct the issue. If they have a grammar error, they should correct it.)

• When the group has finished all paragraphs, they should put them together as if they were the body
paragraphs of the essay.

• Writing a Group Essay–Together the group should write an introduction and solid thesis statement to answer

the following prompt: “What new developments were armies forced to make during World War I both on and off
the battlefield, and why did they make them?”

• Following the construction of an introductory paragraph, they will then add transitions between their

paragraphs and complete a conclusion. Together, they will have written an essay as a group, which you
can then collect and use to measure comprehension of the subject material.

• For technology purposes, I would also recommend (if the hardware is available) typing on Google docs.

That way the students’ paragraphs appear all at once, and the full essay is more or less typed after they
have written their individual paragraphs. They can quickly and efficiently peer edit. If using a computer,
students could also pull selected pictures into the Word document in order to make it appear more like a
magazine layout.

• Using the rubric, teachers can evaluate the product to determine whether or not students understood the ideas

Assessment Materials:

presented in the writing. Further, they can collect student rubrics to ensure that they comprehend the content
and they are demonstrating writing skills.

Lesson Plans & Activities

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