Resources required

• Resource O: A virtual tour of Canadian remembrance in Normandy (also available as a Word document)
• Resource P: Notes for teachers on memorials in Normandy
• Resource Q: Canada remembers
• Resource R: Canadian memorials –further information
• A3 paper and pens

Rationale and learning intentions

• To enable students to see a variety of sites and memorials to show how Canadians commemorate the two World Wars
• To show students how the Canadians were and are remembered today for their actions in the two World Wars
• To consider how Canadian participation in the two World Wars has helped to shape Canada’s sense of nationhood

Students should understand the importance of commemoration to the Canadian sense of national identity and more generally the contribution by the Empire/Commonwealth to the two World Wars. They will conduct an enquiry using a variety of visual and written sources to analyse and consider the value of memorials to an historian in constructing a picture of a nation’s sense of identity.

NB Teachers could refer to the relevant websites in Resource R: Further reading and links, to offer an idea of the issues surrounding garrison towns like Aldershot, War brides and war children.

This enquiry follows the Accelerated Learning Cycle (connect – activate – demonstrate – consolidate), and is accessible to students with a variety of learning styles (visual/aural/kinaesthetic) and offers opportunities to use ICT.

Starter

[NB need a CD or tape player]

Begin with the question:

What is the connection between this song [anything by Eric Clapton, e.g. Layla, I Shot the Sheriff, etc], or Canada and the Second World War?

Play an excerpt to the class. After encouraging a range of possible questions and answers, the answer can be revealed. The connection is that the well-known British blues guitarist Eric Clapton is the son of a Canadian soldier who was stationed in the UK during the Second World War.

The key points for students to understand are that:

• Wars create legacies, sometimes fond memories or sometimes unhappy or less straightforward ones
• The Second World War should be looked at from a range of perspectives i.e. that of the Liberators and the Liberated
• The way that wars are remembered can often shape the way that people and nations think of themselves.

Progression

Show the presentation, Resource O: A virtual tour of Canadian remembrance in Normandy, (content available as a Word document. This offers a virtual tour of a number of sites from Juno Beach inland during the Battle for Normandy. Interspersed are quotations from men who were there or short stories that will help to bring the tour alive (this is particularly helpful if a class is unable to go to battlefields themselves). Notes to accompany slides appear in Resource P: Notes for teachers on memorials in Normandy. As students watch the slides, they should note down recurrent images and themes that appear on monuments and memorials in the various locations.

Main Activity

Upon completion of the presentation, pupils are given a few minutes to discuss with a partner some of the impressions they’ve formed from the images shown. In their pairs they should then construct a mind map (exemplar in Resource Q: Canada remembers) on a piece of A3 paper to show two things:

• the way that the Canadians commemorate the war and
• the way their contribution is remembered.

Possible things that students will highlight might include:

• Canadian Flags
• Gratitude
• Plaques
• Monuments
• War Graves
• Massacres
• Maple Leaf iconography
• ‘Juno Route’
• Etc

Plenary Teacher, having gone around class to view the pupils’ work as it progresses, chooses two or three of the examples for pairs to feedback to the rest of the class. ‘What does the virtual tour tell us about the way Canadians and others view the contribution of Canada in Normandy?’ The A3 sheets can then be used as the basis for a display and can be referred back to in subsequent lessons.

Extension task/homework

Using ICT and/ or the sheet Resource R: Canadian memorials, pupils can undertake research to seek out other memorials that tell us about Canada’s pride in its involvement in the two World Wars. Pupils can be directed towards the Vimy Ridge Memorial or the ‘Brooding Soldier’ at Vancouver (‘Gas’) Corner in St. Juliaan near Ieper (Ypres) in particular. This can then be used to provide linkage between the contribution of Canada and the Empire during both the First and Second World Wars.

Other websites that pupils could use include:

www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=memorials  - Veterans Affairs Canada - Canada Remembers

www.militarybadges.info/canada/pages/10-memorials.htm - Canada in Khaki: Memorials

www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/trlout/TRA13494.html - 24 Hour Museum’s resume of the Dieppe Raid and information about how it has been remembered

www.harrypalmergallery.ab.ca/galwareur2/galwareur2.html - a private site from a photographer with photos of Canadian War Memorials.