How has the interdisciplinary unit affected my subject specific (English and History) understanding of the experience of the First World War?
What were the benefits and the drawbacks of studying the First World War from these two perspectives?
How have the subject lessons and the exhibition task contributed to new interdisciplinary understandings
What was the role of the excursion to Ypres in the development of your interdisciplinary understanding of the First World War?
"Remembering World War One." The Methodist Church in Britain. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2016.
http://www.methodist.org.uk/mission/remembering-world-war-on
http://www.methodist.org.uk/mission/remembering-world-war-on
Namita
In this Interdisciplinary unit on the First World War we formulated research questions as well as sub questions; researched on our respective topics; visited museums and memorials in Ypres in Belgium; and created a final product, which reflected our interdisciplinary learning’s and understandings, which was presented during the Exhibition. My group’s topic of interest was the psychological affect of the war on the soldier’s during the First World War and our product was a theatrical piece that we presented during the exhibitions.
This interdisciplinary unit has affected my subject specific knowledge in English as by examining literature pieces we saw how historical change lead to the change in forms of expression, before, during and after the First World War. In addition it created a bigger, better and combined understanding of the experience of the First World War.
This interdisciplinary unit has affected my subject specific knowledge of the First World War in History, as in the lessons we have covered various topics such as the naval race, arms race, alliances, causes of the war etcetera however through this IDU unit; each group got to explore a new idea of interest on which we would need to do extra research outside of our notes and textbook from history lessons. My group’s interest lied in the affect of the war on the mental health of the soldier’s. We collected information from researching online; reading books from the library; finding primary sources etcetera. Thus the interdisciplinary unit forced us to be independent.
Moreover, along with the knowledge gained outside of history lessons, the interdisciplinary unit has affected my subject specific understanding on the experience of the First World War as during Ypres during the battlefield tour we experienced what trenches were like and walked through them. Amidst the muddy and wet conditions of the trenches out of my comfort zone, I developed a new understanding in the form of pity for the soldiers. Imagining staying in a dirty trench, during harsh weather conditions from extremely hot to rainy days, helped me relate to the soldier’s and have a better understanding on their experiences, rather than the understanding that I gained simply reading about them in a textbook in class.
This part of the trip to Ypres was extremely beneficial, especially for my group and I, because our topic focuses on the mental health of the soldier’s and now that we witnessed the trenches we could see how the living conditions could potentially have a big impact on the mental health, at least in the initial days for the soldiers as later on most of them did get used to it and it made no difference to them. Thus the excursion to Ypres played an important role in the development of my understanding of the First World War.
Another advantage that we gained from the excursion to Ypres was that we visited many places from where we could derive reliable and valuable information and primary sources. From the Flanders Fields Museum I heard about the personal stories of individuals (including soldier’s, doctors and nurses) involved in the war. Throughout the museums there were video displays of soldiers from different countries talking about their experiences. Watching the body language, tone and behavior of these individuals helped and inspired my group as actors for our drama-performance.
Moreover, from visiting the Talbot house in Ypres I noticed the various different ways that historical information and literature that emerged from the war can be communicated; such as through fragments of films, display boards with text and images, guided tours; big models put to display etcetera. This inspired a brainstorm for what product we want to create for the exhibition.
A benefit of studying the First World War from the two literary and historical perspectives was that we were given an opportunity to combine these perspectives and create a new perspective, in the form of an idea or product, which relates in some or the other to both literary and historical. My group did this via our script for the play, which were the dialogues to be spoken by the actors. Or script was composed of extracts from famous poetry from during the First World War. For example we took extracts from poems by Siegfried Sassoon such and Wilfred Owen such as ‘To Victory’ and ‘Dulce et decorum est’. Siegfried Sassoon before writing poems, fought in the First World War as a soldier. This gave me an interdisciplinary understanding of how the soldiers who fought in the war took the initiative to explore literature and this helped them deal with their traumas after the war as most soldiers were too tormented to talk about their experiences. From ‘All quite on the Western Front’ we also learned that some soldier’s did not want to talk about their experiences also because they did not want to scare their families by telling them about the horrific conditions. Writing helped soldier’s express themselves in a way that talking could not. Literature helped soldier’s cope with the impact of the war.
This interdisciplinary understanding enabled my group and I to successfully synthesize both perspectives by making the actors of the drama-play speak the words and fragments of such poems, to leave a big impact on the audience.
The subject lessons in English have contributed to the new interdisciplinary understandings as we read on accounts of experiences of the soldiers in the form of poetry. Soldiers wrote poems and letters sent back to the home front, in a way of personal expression. In addition we analyzed novels such as ‘All quiet on the Western front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and came to grips with the enormous impacts that the war had not only on the soldiers, but also on the civilians and the society as a hole. Erich Maria Remarque was a German veteran from the First World War. Along with reading war poems we read poems such as ‘Who’s up for the game?’ which was used as propaganda in the home front for recruitment of men as soldiers. Additionally we read poems in which soldiers who fought in the war narrate and tell about the horrors of the war. We have read such poems by the famous poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Literature pieces that we have looked at in English was a form of personal self-expression of the soldiers.
The subject lessons in History have contributed to the new interdisciplinary understandings as we studied the experience of war on the battlefield and on the home front; and the experience of Total War on countries all over the world. We learned about races such as the arms and naval race; and the impact of these events on the mentality of the leaders. In addition we looked at other factors that contributed to the Global scale of the war such as alliances. The information studied in history classes helped in this interdisciplinary unit it set the background and context, which was necessary as we needed inspiration and a starting place from where we were free to choose any topic of our interest.
It is arguable that a drawback of studying the First World War from the two, literary and historical, perspectives was that you cannot focus on one perspective and thus the information you find is very surfaced and not deep; thus the understanding is not very deep. For example for the English perspective, it would be more beneficial to focus more on not only the famous poets and poems; but to dig deep and analyze poems that have not gotten very famous but show a side to the war which is not visible otherwise.
The exhibition task contributed to the new interdisciplinary understandings as our final product displayed the knowledge and research we gained from both perspectives. In our theatrical drama piece that we performed as a final product, we gave facts on recruitment; psychological affects such as PTSD and the affects of these on the behavior of the soldier’s and the impacts on their families; and via each of our actors displayed different experiences that soldier’s had in the war etcetera; and thus my group and I synthesized all our knowledge gained from this interdisciplinary unit from the historical perspective.
In addition from the exhibition task during small intervals between our performances, my group and I were presented with a wonderful opportunity to go and look around at the exhibitions of other groups. I saw quite a few groups had similar idea’s as our’; and by looking at their exhibitions we saw and experienced multiple different products and presentations. It was nice to see how different groups had different interdisciplinary understandings. Each group developed new forms of synthesizing two perspectives from this interdisciplinary unit.
In conclusion the interdisciplinary unit combining two perspectives, historical and literary, was a very beneficial project, which allowed each group to be creative and understand the First World War in a unique independent way. Combining two perspectives leads to the formation of many possibilities of a new perspective, which can be derived.
This interdisciplinary unit has affected my subject specific knowledge in English as by examining literature pieces we saw how historical change lead to the change in forms of expression, before, during and after the First World War. In addition it created a bigger, better and combined understanding of the experience of the First World War.
This interdisciplinary unit has affected my subject specific knowledge of the First World War in History, as in the lessons we have covered various topics such as the naval race, arms race, alliances, causes of the war etcetera however through this IDU unit; each group got to explore a new idea of interest on which we would need to do extra research outside of our notes and textbook from history lessons. My group’s interest lied in the affect of the war on the mental health of the soldier’s. We collected information from researching online; reading books from the library; finding primary sources etcetera. Thus the interdisciplinary unit forced us to be independent.
Moreover, along with the knowledge gained outside of history lessons, the interdisciplinary unit has affected my subject specific understanding on the experience of the First World War as during Ypres during the battlefield tour we experienced what trenches were like and walked through them. Amidst the muddy and wet conditions of the trenches out of my comfort zone, I developed a new understanding in the form of pity for the soldiers. Imagining staying in a dirty trench, during harsh weather conditions from extremely hot to rainy days, helped me relate to the soldier’s and have a better understanding on their experiences, rather than the understanding that I gained simply reading about them in a textbook in class.
This part of the trip to Ypres was extremely beneficial, especially for my group and I, because our topic focuses on the mental health of the soldier’s and now that we witnessed the trenches we could see how the living conditions could potentially have a big impact on the mental health, at least in the initial days for the soldiers as later on most of them did get used to it and it made no difference to them. Thus the excursion to Ypres played an important role in the development of my understanding of the First World War.
Another advantage that we gained from the excursion to Ypres was that we visited many places from where we could derive reliable and valuable information and primary sources. From the Flanders Fields Museum I heard about the personal stories of individuals (including soldier’s, doctors and nurses) involved in the war. Throughout the museums there were video displays of soldiers from different countries talking about their experiences. Watching the body language, tone and behavior of these individuals helped and inspired my group as actors for our drama-performance.
Moreover, from visiting the Talbot house in Ypres I noticed the various different ways that historical information and literature that emerged from the war can be communicated; such as through fragments of films, display boards with text and images, guided tours; big models put to display etcetera. This inspired a brainstorm for what product we want to create for the exhibition.
A benefit of studying the First World War from the two literary and historical perspectives was that we were given an opportunity to combine these perspectives and create a new perspective, in the form of an idea or product, which relates in some or the other to both literary and historical. My group did this via our script for the play, which were the dialogues to be spoken by the actors. Or script was composed of extracts from famous poetry from during the First World War. For example we took extracts from poems by Siegfried Sassoon such and Wilfred Owen such as ‘To Victory’ and ‘Dulce et decorum est’. Siegfried Sassoon before writing poems, fought in the First World War as a soldier. This gave me an interdisciplinary understanding of how the soldiers who fought in the war took the initiative to explore literature and this helped them deal with their traumas after the war as most soldiers were too tormented to talk about their experiences. From ‘All quite on the Western Front’ we also learned that some soldier’s did not want to talk about their experiences also because they did not want to scare their families by telling them about the horrific conditions. Writing helped soldier’s express themselves in a way that talking could not. Literature helped soldier’s cope with the impact of the war.
This interdisciplinary understanding enabled my group and I to successfully synthesize both perspectives by making the actors of the drama-play speak the words and fragments of such poems, to leave a big impact on the audience.
The subject lessons in English have contributed to the new interdisciplinary understandings as we read on accounts of experiences of the soldiers in the form of poetry. Soldiers wrote poems and letters sent back to the home front, in a way of personal expression. In addition we analyzed novels such as ‘All quiet on the Western front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and came to grips with the enormous impacts that the war had not only on the soldiers, but also on the civilians and the society as a hole. Erich Maria Remarque was a German veteran from the First World War. Along with reading war poems we read poems such as ‘Who’s up for the game?’ which was used as propaganda in the home front for recruitment of men as soldiers. Additionally we read poems in which soldiers who fought in the war narrate and tell about the horrors of the war. We have read such poems by the famous poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Literature pieces that we have looked at in English was a form of personal self-expression of the soldiers.
The subject lessons in History have contributed to the new interdisciplinary understandings as we studied the experience of war on the battlefield and on the home front; and the experience of Total War on countries all over the world. We learned about races such as the arms and naval race; and the impact of these events on the mentality of the leaders. In addition we looked at other factors that contributed to the Global scale of the war such as alliances. The information studied in history classes helped in this interdisciplinary unit it set the background and context, which was necessary as we needed inspiration and a starting place from where we were free to choose any topic of our interest.
It is arguable that a drawback of studying the First World War from the two, literary and historical, perspectives was that you cannot focus on one perspective and thus the information you find is very surfaced and not deep; thus the understanding is not very deep. For example for the English perspective, it would be more beneficial to focus more on not only the famous poets and poems; but to dig deep and analyze poems that have not gotten very famous but show a side to the war which is not visible otherwise.
The exhibition task contributed to the new interdisciplinary understandings as our final product displayed the knowledge and research we gained from both perspectives. In our theatrical drama piece that we performed as a final product, we gave facts on recruitment; psychological affects such as PTSD and the affects of these on the behavior of the soldier’s and the impacts on their families; and via each of our actors displayed different experiences that soldier’s had in the war etcetera; and thus my group and I synthesized all our knowledge gained from this interdisciplinary unit from the historical perspective.
In addition from the exhibition task during small intervals between our performances, my group and I were presented with a wonderful opportunity to go and look around at the exhibitions of other groups. I saw quite a few groups had similar idea’s as our’; and by looking at their exhibitions we saw and experienced multiple different products and presentations. It was nice to see how different groups had different interdisciplinary understandings. Each group developed new forms of synthesizing two perspectives from this interdisciplinary unit.
In conclusion the interdisciplinary unit combining two perspectives, historical and literary, was a very beneficial project, which allowed each group to be creative and understand the First World War in a unique independent way. Combining two perspectives leads to the formation of many possibilities of a new perspective, which can be derived.
Maggie
The Grade 10 Interdisciplinary Unit centred on learning about the First World War through a History and an English perspective and required to synthesise both aspects in order to create a project, focused on a specific subtopic, regarding World War I. Our group, which consisted of Ella, Namita, Sarah, Mala and me, chose to investigate the mental health of the soldiers, their experiences during the war, which inevitably damaged their mentality, and the troubles they had to face and overcome after the war was over.
Unmistakably, History lessons were a crucial part in introducing the concept to us, even before Ypres, and helped us to understanding the historical context of the matter. I’ve discussed the topic of the First World War in previous years, but during out History lessons I had the chance to learn more profoundly about the subject at hand and especially examine other topics that I haven’t been familiarized with, for example the conflicts before the actual war and reasons for the formation of the alliances, pre-war morale, propaganda and also the actual life in the trenches. This helped me to acquaint myself with the atmosphere and the experiences of the soldiers, which also was a pivotal point in choosing the topic I wanted to investigate in detail. English was a beneficial addition to this, because we investigated literary pieces written in that particular time period, which showed us what people’s views were and their opinions of the conflict. Wilfred Owen’s and Siegfried Sassoon’s poems, as well as Erich Marie Remarque’s “All Quite on the Western Front” had a very important role in our project, seeing as they helped us understand the mindsets of the soldiers in different time periods, as well as their struggles pre, during and post war.
The interdisciplinary unit succoured us to understand the matter of the First World War through a History and an English perspective - for example helped us to consider the historical context when we look at a poem or a literary piece, which can help us grasp what were the events that inspired the author to write it and on the other hand, if we learned about an important battle or a specific time period linked to the First World War, we could use poetic sources to better understand how people felt about it in that time. The interdisciplinary unit graced us wit the chance to bring together information from different subjects, which allowed us to explore separate issues more in-depth.The combination of two subjects also gave us a myriad of opportunities for the nature of our final piece, which are not limited to just one of the them and allowed for our final product to have a more in-depth meaning,, compared to if we only focused on doing this in History or English. Yet, interdisciplinary learning, in my opinion, limited our factual knowledge of events, linked to the First World War. Seeing as we focused more on executing the synthesis between the two subjects that was required of us, in that way we only paid attention to the information which benefitted our project and didn’t particularly focus on other issues, that weren’t linked to our topic, since we regarded learning in class as another source for us to gain information on our project and not as a way to educate ourselves.
During our History and English lessons, we thoughtfully investigated the First World War, but we mainly focused on the pre-war and during war time frames and we didn’t quite talk about the end of the war and what this meant for the soldiers, who managed to survive the carnages of the conflict. This was an issue for our group, because we had to do all of our research on our own, with only brief class discussion about ‘’shellshock’’ and other mental health problems during the lessons that we could fall back into and use as a base for our knowledge. This was one of the reasons why we chose to do a drama performance for our final project – we wanted to educate people about the effects that war had on the soldiers in a way that would be easy to perceive by the audience and that would get the message across, and we didn’t think that a plain presentation would have the impact that a drama performance would. We also chose to present our final product as a performance because we thought that in that way we can best achieve the synthesis between History and English – the theme of the play was centred on the historical context, seeing as we portrayed the atmosphere before, during and after the war and the physical characters represented soldiers from the military. On the other hand, our script was entirely composed of quotes from poems, books and literary works from the time period of 1914-1918, as well as more recent analytical literary pieces. Creating a drama performance and actually attaining an audience and performing in front of them was a serious challenge in terms of my communicating skills and I had to adapt to the situations in order to successfully perform our project. Undoubtedly, the interdisciplinary unit tested our group work related skills, seeing as we worked together during our planning and creative process, as well as the actual realisation of our final product for more than a month.
Ypres was a crucial point in actually understanding the importance of what we were learning during our History and English lessons. Even thought I had an idea of what trench systems and most weapons looked like, for example, it was beneficial for me to actually see them in person. We had our topic chosen before going to Ypres, so we planned to gain more knowledge and primary sources related to our investigation of mental health in soldiers during the school trip. Unfortunately, we didn’t find as much information on our area of investigation as we wanted – we only discovered only a couple of paragraphs associated with the soldiers’ mentality in In Flanders Fields Museum and we also attained some information from the tour guides on how poison gas affected the mental health of soldiers and how did they face the effects of shellshock after the war.
Unmistakably, History lessons were a crucial part in introducing the concept to us, even before Ypres, and helped us to understanding the historical context of the matter. I’ve discussed the topic of the First World War in previous years, but during out History lessons I had the chance to learn more profoundly about the subject at hand and especially examine other topics that I haven’t been familiarized with, for example the conflicts before the actual war and reasons for the formation of the alliances, pre-war morale, propaganda and also the actual life in the trenches. This helped me to acquaint myself with the atmosphere and the experiences of the soldiers, which also was a pivotal point in choosing the topic I wanted to investigate in detail. English was a beneficial addition to this, because we investigated literary pieces written in that particular time period, which showed us what people’s views were and their opinions of the conflict. Wilfred Owen’s and Siegfried Sassoon’s poems, as well as Erich Marie Remarque’s “All Quite on the Western Front” had a very important role in our project, seeing as they helped us understand the mindsets of the soldiers in different time periods, as well as their struggles pre, during and post war.
The interdisciplinary unit succoured us to understand the matter of the First World War through a History and an English perspective - for example helped us to consider the historical context when we look at a poem or a literary piece, which can help us grasp what were the events that inspired the author to write it and on the other hand, if we learned about an important battle or a specific time period linked to the First World War, we could use poetic sources to better understand how people felt about it in that time. The interdisciplinary unit graced us wit the chance to bring together information from different subjects, which allowed us to explore separate issues more in-depth.The combination of two subjects also gave us a myriad of opportunities for the nature of our final piece, which are not limited to just one of the them and allowed for our final product to have a more in-depth meaning,, compared to if we only focused on doing this in History or English. Yet, interdisciplinary learning, in my opinion, limited our factual knowledge of events, linked to the First World War. Seeing as we focused more on executing the synthesis between the two subjects that was required of us, in that way we only paid attention to the information which benefitted our project and didn’t particularly focus on other issues, that weren’t linked to our topic, since we regarded learning in class as another source for us to gain information on our project and not as a way to educate ourselves.
During our History and English lessons, we thoughtfully investigated the First World War, but we mainly focused on the pre-war and during war time frames and we didn’t quite talk about the end of the war and what this meant for the soldiers, who managed to survive the carnages of the conflict. This was an issue for our group, because we had to do all of our research on our own, with only brief class discussion about ‘’shellshock’’ and other mental health problems during the lessons that we could fall back into and use as a base for our knowledge. This was one of the reasons why we chose to do a drama performance for our final project – we wanted to educate people about the effects that war had on the soldiers in a way that would be easy to perceive by the audience and that would get the message across, and we didn’t think that a plain presentation would have the impact that a drama performance would. We also chose to present our final product as a performance because we thought that in that way we can best achieve the synthesis between History and English – the theme of the play was centred on the historical context, seeing as we portrayed the atmosphere before, during and after the war and the physical characters represented soldiers from the military. On the other hand, our script was entirely composed of quotes from poems, books and literary works from the time period of 1914-1918, as well as more recent analytical literary pieces. Creating a drama performance and actually attaining an audience and performing in front of them was a serious challenge in terms of my communicating skills and I had to adapt to the situations in order to successfully perform our project. Undoubtedly, the interdisciplinary unit tested our group work related skills, seeing as we worked together during our planning and creative process, as well as the actual realisation of our final product for more than a month.
Ypres was a crucial point in actually understanding the importance of what we were learning during our History and English lessons. Even thought I had an idea of what trench systems and most weapons looked like, for example, it was beneficial for me to actually see them in person. We had our topic chosen before going to Ypres, so we planned to gain more knowledge and primary sources related to our investigation of mental health in soldiers during the school trip. Unfortunately, we didn’t find as much information on our area of investigation as we wanted – we only discovered only a couple of paragraphs associated with the soldiers’ mentality in In Flanders Fields Museum and we also attained some information from the tour guides on how poison gas affected the mental health of soldiers and how did they face the effects of shellshock after the war.
Sarah
How has the interdisciplinary unit affected my subject specific (English and History) understanding of the experience of the First World War?
By studying the First World War from the perspectives of both history and English I was able to obtain a greater understanding of the information I gathered from both fields. In English I benefitted from having the knowledge of historical events and facts. The history research I did that gave me a timeline of events as well as a general understanding of the war aided my grasping of the poetry and literary works of the time. While reading poems I was able to decipher their meanings and how that would make sense in context; for example, while looking at the poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae I achieved an added depth of understanding by knowing that Flanders Fields are the battlefields located in Belgium where many of the most important and gory battles transpired the various battles which took place there, as well as knowing the significance of a poppy with relation to WW1.
While learning about the historical aspects of WW1 I benefitted greatly from looking at poetry and literature for various reasons: it made the numbers have meaning, gave first hand accounts of the war, and gave a variety of perspectives. While looking into WW1 there are so many large numbers, such as 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, that often times the intensity and severity of the amount of people that affects can be lost. While looking at written works from the time it showed that each death was significant; in poems such as “dulce decorum est “ we see how the death of one man affects his peers, his family and himself. This then brings back to mind the of each of the 17 million who lost their lives, many people were affected by their death as well, creating an even larger network of people whom where hurt by the war. Also, by hearing the stories of each of the soldiers experiences in the war it gives a sense of humanity to each of the lives lost, making the number of 17 million a truly overwhelming one. Literature created at the time is one of the best forms of primary evidence from the time and therefore is very useful while researching the historical aspects of WW1. In this way first hand accounts of life during the war are clearly demonstrated without hindsight bias. Lastly, with the incredible variety of opinions on the war and how writing was used as a forum to showcase those opinions at the time, the literature from the time period then clearly showcases the various views on the war.
What were the benefits and the drawbacks of studying the First World War from these two perspectives?
The benefits from studying the war from two perspectives were immense. For example, it gave me insight into the minds of the soldiers who were sitting in the trenches while I was also able to understand the more technical aspects of the trenches that crafted such an experience for that same soldier. On a more broad note, by studying the Great War both through English and history it allowed me to view the war from a variety of perspectives and understand, in an unbiased way, what they were feeling and seeing through historical studies. The entire experience was much more emotional because we studied it from two perspectives because, as aforementioned, since I read about how all those who were casualties of war felt as well as those who were affected by casualties it really brought across the severity of the amount of people whom were hurt. There were no drawbacks from this type of learning, and in my opinion, there is no better way to study war.
How have the subject lessons and the exhibition task contributed to new interdisciplinary understandings?
I wish there had been a greater overlap between the history lessons and the English lessons as their focuses were very separate. Had we have gone along a timeline in both and looked at the events of specific years as well as the literature which was created during that time, it would have created a more comprehensive and engaging syllabus. However, it was not entirely ineffective the way it was. In English we read poetry from different poets from all points during the war, as well as looked at All Quiet On the Western Front. By doing so I was able to understand the emotional side of war. In history we discussed the outbreak of the war as well as the attack strategies of the countries, as well as some battles which took place. These dates and facts kindly aided my understanding of the literature, and vice versa, however had there have been a more joint syllabus I believe the unit would have been even more successful in creating an interdisciplinary understanding of the topic.
What was the role of the excursion to Ypres in the development of your interdisciplinary understanding of the First World War?
The Ypres excursion was beneficial to the my interdisciplinary learning in various ways. With regards to history, in the museums were great resources for some aspects of our exhibition project. For English we were able to better understand where the inspiration for various poems were found, such as while we were experiencing the trenches. However, I do know that for many groups they were not able to benefit from the trip as greatly because their topics were not discussed in the limited areas that we visited. If I were to give any criticism it would be the lack of variety within the activities which we did while in Ypres.
By studying the First World War from the perspectives of both history and English I was able to obtain a greater understanding of the information I gathered from both fields. In English I benefitted from having the knowledge of historical events and facts. The history research I did that gave me a timeline of events as well as a general understanding of the war aided my grasping of the poetry and literary works of the time. While reading poems I was able to decipher their meanings and how that would make sense in context; for example, while looking at the poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae I achieved an added depth of understanding by knowing that Flanders Fields are the battlefields located in Belgium where many of the most important and gory battles transpired the various battles which took place there, as well as knowing the significance of a poppy with relation to WW1.
While learning about the historical aspects of WW1 I benefitted greatly from looking at poetry and literature for various reasons: it made the numbers have meaning, gave first hand accounts of the war, and gave a variety of perspectives. While looking into WW1 there are so many large numbers, such as 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, that often times the intensity and severity of the amount of people that affects can be lost. While looking at written works from the time it showed that each death was significant; in poems such as “dulce decorum est “ we see how the death of one man affects his peers, his family and himself. This then brings back to mind the of each of the 17 million who lost their lives, many people were affected by their death as well, creating an even larger network of people whom where hurt by the war. Also, by hearing the stories of each of the soldiers experiences in the war it gives a sense of humanity to each of the lives lost, making the number of 17 million a truly overwhelming one. Literature created at the time is one of the best forms of primary evidence from the time and therefore is very useful while researching the historical aspects of WW1. In this way first hand accounts of life during the war are clearly demonstrated without hindsight bias. Lastly, with the incredible variety of opinions on the war and how writing was used as a forum to showcase those opinions at the time, the literature from the time period then clearly showcases the various views on the war.
What were the benefits and the drawbacks of studying the First World War from these two perspectives?
The benefits from studying the war from two perspectives were immense. For example, it gave me insight into the minds of the soldiers who were sitting in the trenches while I was also able to understand the more technical aspects of the trenches that crafted such an experience for that same soldier. On a more broad note, by studying the Great War both through English and history it allowed me to view the war from a variety of perspectives and understand, in an unbiased way, what they were feeling and seeing through historical studies. The entire experience was much more emotional because we studied it from two perspectives because, as aforementioned, since I read about how all those who were casualties of war felt as well as those who were affected by casualties it really brought across the severity of the amount of people whom were hurt. There were no drawbacks from this type of learning, and in my opinion, there is no better way to study war.
How have the subject lessons and the exhibition task contributed to new interdisciplinary understandings?
I wish there had been a greater overlap between the history lessons and the English lessons as their focuses were very separate. Had we have gone along a timeline in both and looked at the events of specific years as well as the literature which was created during that time, it would have created a more comprehensive and engaging syllabus. However, it was not entirely ineffective the way it was. In English we read poetry from different poets from all points during the war, as well as looked at All Quiet On the Western Front. By doing so I was able to understand the emotional side of war. In history we discussed the outbreak of the war as well as the attack strategies of the countries, as well as some battles which took place. These dates and facts kindly aided my understanding of the literature, and vice versa, however had there have been a more joint syllabus I believe the unit would have been even more successful in creating an interdisciplinary understanding of the topic.
What was the role of the excursion to Ypres in the development of your interdisciplinary understanding of the First World War?
The Ypres excursion was beneficial to the my interdisciplinary learning in various ways. With regards to history, in the museums were great resources for some aspects of our exhibition project. For English we were able to better understand where the inspiration for various poems were found, such as while we were experiencing the trenches. However, I do know that for many groups they were not able to benefit from the trip as greatly because their topics were not discussed in the limited areas that we visited. If I were to give any criticism it would be the lack of variety within the activities which we did while in Ypres.
Ella
In this unit, it was of course essential to acquire knowledge and develop skills in History and English, but it also helped us develop general skills that will be needed throughout our lives. Due to the assigned time that was somewhat short, we had to make sure we managed our time carefully so as not to run into trouble a few days before the deadline. I think we did a good job of this, as the workload was pretty much constant throughout the process and I feel we split the work evenly among us. Although the time assigned was not as long as expected, I am hesitant to say that an extended deadline would have improved the quality of our work very much. While many of us would probably argue that the vacation would have given us lots of needed time to work on IDU, it would only have allowed us to postpone the work process, most probably leading to lots of last-minute work during the vacation. I was indeed very pleased to hear that the exhibition would be before the vacation so that everything could be rounded off before. This gave me an essentially work, and stress-free vacation.
As mentioned before, the IDU has not just helped us with our time management, but of course also with our subject specific knowledge. We looked at a topic that was not covered by the curriculum, and as it was something that interested us all, we were eager to research into it. I am sure I am not alone in thinking that allowing us to choose our own topics did make the unit more enjoyable. From a history perspective we looked at some general information about our topic: a general introduction to the outbreak of the first world war, pre-war morale, the reality of war, the after math, statistics about the amount of soldier who died, suffered from shell-shock, depression etc. It was vital that the audience members had this background knowledge, and we as we were told we should assume they might know near to nothing, all this was included in our exhibition. Looking back at it however, perhaps we should have made the information a little more concise as a rather large part of the ‘play’ was the narrator talking. With regards to English, we looked at poetry for our exhibition, something that we also did during our English lessons. A big part of our lessons was looking at and analysing poems from the WWI era and seeing how the tone of these changed throughout the four years of the war. Pre-war, morale was mainly very high, as people thought the war would be short and glorious, and this reflected through the poems of that time (around 1914). Our short play also reflects this mood, though it does touch upon the idea that some men might have been reluctant to join the army. In general, the play reflects the general mood towards war at that point in time (pre-war, during-war, after-war).
A big part of the unit was synthesis, and thus it was essential that we looked at the topic at hand from the perspective of both History and English combined. Thus, we chose to create a play constructed almost entirely of lines from poetry from that era. Not only did this mean developed our script writing skills but it would be integrated with history as we used historical poems. Although this idea of synthesis might have been difficult to grasp at first, I think it gave us the opportunity to created a more well-rounded project than if we had created a project from either an English or historical perspective on its own. Looking at literature from the time in lessons gave us evidence of the mood towards war in the different stages of war. A drawback of looking at the topic from the perspective of both History and English might be that it forced two topics to be integrated that would not necessarily belong together. This was not a problem that our group faced but I can imagine some people might have had this problem. For example, they may have felt that they should look at the topic from a literature perspective whereas this was not necessary. With a topic like technological advances throughout there may have been more difficulty with finding an interesting English perspective.
Pre-Ypres we had already decided that our topic would be mental health but the trip to Ypres only made us ever more sure that we wanted to explore this topic. The Ypres left a lasting impression, to be very cliché, as we saw the locations of battlefields as well as hearing about the horror of the war and the effects on the soldiers. Although the latter was also addressed in the classroom, being where it happened made it more real. We wanted to communicate this to those at home, and we concluded that a short plays would be the most fitting format. We gathered that this format would be most successful in portraying emotion, which is essential to grasping the topic. In my opinion only words, facts and statistics cannot portray this emotion and do justice to the topic.
MALA
An interdisciplinary unit is taking a unit and combining two or more subjects to synthesise information of both subjects, to in the end create conclusions and products through unit specific learning. In Grade 10, we focused on World War I, with specifically synthesizing the information gained from a historical and literary viewpoint. To begin with in history we studied all aspects of the total war, and how it came to be. By doing so we got prior knowledge of the causes, origin and the context of the war. Whilst in English, we studied All Quiet On The Western Front and several poems looking at the literary concepts, devices and mediums gaining knowledge on how soldiers, and participants in the war were treated and emotionally felt. Through english we also gained knowledge on factual events to give different viewpoints of people of the 20th century. Finally after looking at both aspects, we were presented with the interdisciplinary unit, and put into groups, to synthesize information given to learn and educate about a specific research question that could incorporate both English and History, and eventually as an outcome would be to represent those findings in a product form. My group consisting of Ella Newman, Sarah Bozuwa, Margarita Sinapova, Namita Gupta and I. As a group we decided on the following research question:
"To what extent did trench warfare on the western front and the experience of total war affect the mental state of the soldiers participating in the war and how was this portrayed?"
After answering we used that information to create and write our own play based on journal and poetry entries that portrayed our answer to our research question.
How has the interdisciplinary unit affected my subject specific (English and History) understanding of the experience of the First World War? How have the subject lessons and the exhibition task contributed to new interdisciplinary understandings?
Both English and History taught completely different aspects of World War I, so at first it seemed hard to connect both subjects directly, However the meaning of interdisciplinary is not to directly connect the subjects however to take findings from both subjects of your learning and use that information to answer your research and sub questions to finally create a synthesized product. By doing this project I came to that realisation of synthesis in product and total rather than during the entirety. Which I did not realise in the prior to this specific interdisciplinary unit. In the previous interdisciplinary units we studied did not necessarily have to synthesize and create an entire product whilst combining two subjects, therefore this was a new ground and the techniques I learnt I could no apply in other everyday studies. To begin with I found out how to analyse a primary source of any type and by using subject specific research (origins and context) I could have a deeper understanding to the source, rather than just analysing it as a product, I could see the historical viewpoint of it. The detail and process of analysing now gave me an entire viewpoint of World War I. In English we could study interior, and in history exteriorly. This is seen by in English we could look at primary source, whilst in History we could study the entirety of the war. And by doing so both aspects would make you understand the reason, experience and life of war in extreme detail. By making your own conclusions based on what you studied in English to understand History, or vice versa.
This I could now use, in other subjects for example Biology and History, when studying nature and our bodies, I could now synthesize information between History and Biology to get a deeper understanding.
The subjects specifically provided and forced students to use their minds and learn, rather than the teachers giving us the information that linked both subjects. As groups we could learn from each other and discover findings about the connection in both fields. A main and important discovery for our group, is when we realised how often historical information could also be found in poetry and how we could use that poetry to make and script our own play. Based on the knowledge that we had gained in history, we could use specific context to describe the horrors of war, using language that soldiers in that era would use. The exhibition product was where our group finally answered all of our research questions, to create and write the script we did. Therefore the product heavily was important for our interdisciplinary understanding.
What were the benefits and the drawbacks of studying the First World War from these two perspectives?
Beneficially as stated above, I personally could have a new understanding on several aspects of war, and overall could see wide scope of the war.
A drawback could be a lot of information gathered was either beneficial in History or beneficial in English and could not necessarily be used in the interdisciplinary aspect. An example of this could be in English when we learnt a lot about poetic language and devices that was already used centuries before the war. The sole idea that soldiers were expressing themselves creatively gave me as a leaner a lot of Intel and information on how I could use that to analyze whom the soldiers were as people and what the war positively could bring out of them. However when going into so much detail about the poetic and literary devices it was hard to remain focused on the synthesis rather than the English. However all in all the entirety of the interdisciplinary unit had very few drawbacks, and was in entirety beneficial for my understanding of World War I.
What was the role of the excursion to Ypres in the development of your interdisciplinary understanding of the First World War?
When going to Ypres I collectively discovered several things, to begin with, I myself could understand what the war truly meant and how many families and individuals were and could be impacted by it. It was clear to me that not everything during the war was reasonable, and the extreme measures and development that happened during it portrayed what could happen in this day, and how fortunate we are that we do not have to suffer in that same way. It gave several things perspective. However in relation to my groups research question, in the museums that we did visit it was hard to find a perfect relation to answer our research question however by looking at several facts that we learnt historically, Which overall gave us context for our product.
All in all the process of interdisciplinary unit taught myself and my group about the positive aid and help that a interdisciplinary unit can give you through the process of looking at information with several different perspective sand putting that information together to create a cohesive answer to specific research questions. The WWI unit as a whole was enlightening and taught myself a lot about the early 1900’s and how those events have shaped the world we live in today.