Teaching World War I in the 21st Century 1 | Page 58

• Teachers can take the documents in a number of different directions. They can predict what the next day’s diary

Methods for Extension:

entry would be, based on what seems to be the average behavior. Further, they can defend why they chose those
events for the diary entry, based on the frequency with which those events have occurred so far in his writing.

• To summarize the documents, the students could write a letter home from Linman. They should explain what
has been going on, covering all aspects of war that he has seen or experienced.

• For a technology angle, students could use Excel features for making charts or graphs to explain what

percentage of time was spent on marching, loading/moving guns, actually fighting, etc. It gives visual learners a
chance to see just how often Linman was fighting, as opposed to moving in a logistic capacity.

• Students could also look into what Linman did not experience that they know was common at the front. Ask

students: “what experiences have you talked or read about that are not in his diary that you would expect? Why
do you think he did not have these experiences?”

• Go to http://www.loc.gov/vets/stories/WWI-trenches.html, part of the Experiencing War series from the

Library of Congress. Assign students to read a selection from the diary of one of the many soldiers featured
there and have them compare and contrast the experience of that soldier to Linman’s experience.

• Students can also comment on what his best days/worst days looked like in an additional paragraph. Did

Linman write only a sentence or two on some days? If so, what happened on those days? Why could he only
manage that little bit of writing?

• The A Soldier at War Organizer is meant to help students at all levels organize their thoughts.

Adaptations:

• The same is true for the Precise Paragraph Rubric. Students are forced to deconstruct the writing sample of

a peer and then edit their own. This will serve to help higher-level students, who sometimes get away from
really looking at the skeleton of their work in the fast pace of higher-level classes. It will also help students
who struggle with basic writing skills. The metacognitive benefits will hopefully pay dividends on not just this
assignment, but any writing assignment moving forward.

Scan for additional resources (including
links to the documents and materials) or
visit http://www.nhd.org/WWI.htm.

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Lesson Plans & Activities