WWII-Soldiers Coming Home

2007-12-09T13:55:00.001-08:00

Katie Magee
EDUC 333
December 9, 2007

WWII

1. Lesson: Soldiers Coming Home from War
Grade 7
45 min. class period

2. Materials/resources needed:
*Poem: Thank you Soldier By Chris Woolnough
From Winona Historical Society-
*primary artifact-Appreciation Dinner Honoring Red Cross Canteen Corps letter
*primary artifact-Appreciation Party Honoring Service men of WWII letter
*primary artifact- Winona Buisnessmen’s Welcome home Committee letter

3. Goal(s) for today’s lesson: (This shows people how your lesson “fits” into the MN standards)

The goal of today’s lesson is for the students to understand how the soldiers returning from war felt.

4. Objectives for today’s lesson: (This tells people what kids will know or be able to do at the end of the lesson

The student’s will be able to write a paragraph or two about what the soldiers went through when they returned home from war.

5. Procedures
a. introductory experiences

Read “Thank you Soldier” to the class. Ask students to listen carefully to the poem and to really think about the meaning. When you finish reading the poem ask students for their opinions, reactions, or thoughts. Were you scared, angry, sad, upset, confused…. 10-12 min.

b. developmental experiences: (Please number the steps and include approximate time each step will take)

*Today we are going to be discussing how soldiers might have felt when they returned home from war. Show the primary artifacts from the WHS. Explain that even here in Winona people had friends and family who were coming home from war. Read the Welcome Home Committee letter to the students. Pass around the letter once you are finished so they can see it. Explain the Appreciation letters too and pass them around the class as well. 5 min.

*Explain after the welcome home parties stopped, the soldier’s memories of the war still went on. The war for many soldiers lasted the rest of their lives because they continued to relive it in their memories. Hand out the reading US Soldiers After WWII. Ask the students to quietly read this passage by them self. When they are finished they should write a paragraph or two about what they just read. Write on the board what the paragraph should be about. Ex. reactions, feelings, things you learned, interesting facts….. 15 min.

*Have students share what they wrote in their paragraphs before they turn them in. 5 min.

c. culminating experiences (closure)

Reread the poem Thank you Soldier to the students. Ask if their feelings about the poem have changed after learning more about soldiers coming home from war. 5 min.

6. Assessments used during lesson (Formative/Summative, if applicable):

The students will be assessed through the paragraph they write about the reading. They will also be assessed through classroom discussion.

Thank you SoldierBy Chris WoolnoughHave you stopped to thank a veteran today?For the price of freedom they had to pay?Did you gaze into those distant eyes?Did you see the ghosts he can't deny?Did you think a soldier's heart was made of steel?Because he was trained to kill, he couldn't feel?Did you see the guilt written on his face,For the loss of life he can't replace?Did you know he mourns the lives he couldn't save,And walks with comrades in their grave?Did you remember the boy with innocence lost?Do you really know war's ultimate cost?Have you felt the blast of artillery fire?Do you have the courage it would require?Have you stood in trenches consumed with fear?Felt the enemies breath so very near?Have you walked with God on a battleground?Seen your brothers dead or dying all around?Have you stopped to thank a vet today,Or did you just turn and walk away?From the pain he'll carry for the rest of his life,Did you consider his family, his children, his wife?That watch him suffer in silence each and every day,As he's haunted by memories that don't go away?Did you care that the soldier is still pulling guard?That his heart, mind, and soul will forever be scarred?Do you know how he suffers from ptsd?Or that our precious freedom is never free?Do you care that he still hears the blood curdling screams?Or that he returns to the war each night in his dreams?Have you felt the sorrow of a combat vet?Or would you rather just forget?That war has pierced his hardened heart,And torn this soldier all apart?Would you rather our heroes just fade away?Or will you stop to thank a vet today?

U.S. Soldiers After World War II
The accounts from soldiers describing combat in general
present an image of a hellish nightmare where all decency and humanity
could be lost. For men who fought under these conditions, coming home
was a very difficult transition. Above all, these men wanted to return
to "normalcy", to come back to a life that they had been promised if
the war was won. This would turn out to be harder to obtain then first
expected, problems ranging from the availability of jobs in the work
force to child raising and post-traumatic stress would make this
return to "normalcy" very troublesome. This laborious task of
reintegrating into American culture would eventually lead to problems
in the gender relations in post war America.

One of the major problems that G.I.'s faced upon there return
to the States was the availability of jobs. During the war, the U.S.
government encouraged women and minorities to enter the industrial
work force due to labor shortages and increased demand for war goods.
By 1944 a total of 1,360,000 women with husbands in the service had
entered the work force. This, along with the a migration of
African-American workers from the south, filled the war time need for
labor. This attitude toward women in the work force changed
dramatically at the end of the war. The propaganda promoting "Rosie
the Riviter", suddenly changed, focusing on the duties of women as a
homemaker and a mother. Even with these efforts and those of the G.I.
bills passed after the war, returning soldiers had a difficult time
finding jobs in post war America. This independence given to women
during the war and its removal with the advent of the returning men,
had a definitive effect on gender relations in American society and
which one of the seeds of the womens rights movements in later
decades.

Another hardship encountered by returning soldiers was the
reactions of the children they left behind. Most of the fathers that
returned from the war concerned with how they would fit into the
family system. Some fathers were determined to take an active role in
the family and they did by becoming the master disciplinary. Returning
fathers came to home to find undisciplined and unruly children, a far
cry from ordered military life they had lead during the war. Some
children even resented at the strangers who had re-entered their
lives, lives that seemed complete without him. One of the roots of
these feelings was that children that lived in extended families
during the war enjoyed being pampered and disliked the determination
that some returning fathers had to fulfill his paternal role and
impose discipline. The fathers return disrupted the homefront in
various other ways also. Some children feared that their fathers would
not stay and as a result didn't want to become to attached to them, in
fear that they might again leave. Other children were angry that the
fathers had left in the first place. The homecoming was especially
hard on both father and child in a family where the child was born
during the war or was very young when the father left. Most of these
children hardly recognized there fathers and where fearful at these
new strangers. Another problem faced by returning fathers was their
believe that their son had become "soft" in the absence of a strong
male-role model. The return of the father in the domestic life also
effected the gender relation after the war. Most children found there
lives complete without there fathers and some even found that they had
more freedom when there father was gone. Girls that found there
mothers working and performing what was before considered male role,
were found to develop less traditional feminine sex roles. It could be
said that the working mom inspired the children of the era to be more
independent themselves. This also could serve as a origin to the
feminist movements in later decades.

Post-traumatic stress, "shell shock", was common among the
returning soldiers. Most wives and children noticed behavioral changes
in the men that the knew before the war. Veterans returning from the
battlefield would suffer nightmares and flashbacks of combat, about
their alienation and loneliness , desperation and withdrawal. These
results of combat and the increase in alcoholism among the returning
G.I.'s lead to an upward spiral in the number of divorces that
occurred after the war.

The return home for many soldiers was not at all comfortable.
After fighting under unbearable conditions for years, the return to
domestic life was undoubtedly not what was expected. With the problems
of find work and those encountered on the family scheme, this
reintegration was anything but smooth.

http://www.cyberessays.com/History/139.htm

WWII-War on the Home Front

2007-12-09T13:45:00.001-08:00

Katie Magee
Grade-7
Theme: World War II

Today’s Lesson: War on the Home Front

2. Materials/resources needed:
Posters from WWII-http://www.library.northwestern.edu/otcgi/digilib/llscgi60.exe?QUERY=jpeg&REGION=M8561Z&db=2&SIZE=10&SORTBY=M260C Print copies for classroom
Crayons
Markers
Construction Paper
White Paper
Artifacts from Winona Historical Society-“Savings Bonds” poster, “Blackout Instructions”, and “War Loan” poster

3. Goal(s) for today’s lesson:
The students will learn about what life was like at home during WWII and how people supported the war from home. They will know what was going on at home socially and economically.

4. Objectives for today’s lesson:
The students will be able to recreate their own poster modeling one they would have seen around town if they lived during WWII.

5. Procedures
a. introductory experiences
Have posters from WWII out around the classroom for students to see as they walk into the classroom. Then ask students to walk around the room and look at each of the posters and find similarities and differences in them. Point out the artifacts from WHS. Explain that these are copies of things that were actually posted around Winona. Students should write down notes to help them remember the different posters. Write on the board that they should be looking for different phrases, how certain groups were treated, contributions people made…. 6-9 min

b. developmental experiences: (Please number the steps and include approximate time each step will take)

1. Put students into groups of 5, have them discuss what they see in the posters, how posters encouraged people at home to contribute to the war,
and why they think some of the posters were made. 5-8 min.

2. Bring class back together and have groups share what it is their groups discussed. Was there a particular poster that stuck out? Why? 5-8 min.

3. Guided discussion- How do the posters show/encourage social changes (women in the work place…), economic changes (rationing of food, more jobs b/c of supplies needed for the war….) Ask how their lives might have changed if they were alive during WWII, how would they have contributed to the war even if they were just one person here in Winona? 10-15 min.

4. Have students start on a poster they will create. Hand out guidelines for poster. The poster should resemble one they might have found here at home during the War. What they do not finish in class will be homework for tomorrow.

c. culminating experiences (closure)

Bring class back together and ask what they learned about WWII on the home front? What changes occurred at home?

6. Assessments used during lesson:
Groups work (walk around classroom and listen in on each groups conversations)
Classroom discussion
Posters students recreate that they would have found at home during WWII
WWII Poster Assignment

You should create a poster that you would see if you lived during WWII. Think about what kinds of things you saw on the posters in class. The poster should be on an 8 by 11 sheet of paper. Do not use your computer to make the poster. (They did not have computers in the 1940’s) Your poster can be in black and white or in color. You can not just use pencil though. You must use colored pencil, crayon, or marker. It is due tomorrow. Have fun and be creative!