Evaluating historical sources from the First World War

This beautifully illustrated resource has been designed to help KS3 students understand the problems historians face when using photographs and letters from the First World War. It looks at the issues surrounding recruitment, morale, the Christmas Truce and the introduction of press censorship and of soldiers personal letters.

When you purchase this lesson you will be able to download a PowerPoint and an accompanying lesson plan. The PowerPoint includes the aims, objectives, information slides, photocopy sheets, video clip links, starters, plenaries and activities that drive the lesson.

The lesson begins with a snowballing starter of the key words. This is followed up by a ‘buzz and go’ peer review sheet where students spend two minutes writing down what they already know about how to use a historical source, this is then passed onto the next person to peer review and add an extra point and so forth until all four squares are complete. At this stage, I get my students to nominate someone to feedback for their table before moving onto the next three information slides on how to use a source successfully, followed by the problems the army faced in recruiting people from September to December 1914 and then the Christmas Truce. At the relevant points, I ask my students why they think the number of people volunteering dropped off and how the British public would react to the photographs of British and German soldiers during the Christmas Truce. We then discuss the steps taken by the British Army to ban cameras, censor letters and newspapers after the Christmas Truce to protect morale.

Depending upon how much time you have, I then set my students one of two tasks. The first task involves censoring a soldier’s letter from the trenches to make sure it does not damage morale back home or give away military secrets, meanwhile the second task involves imagining that they are a newspaper editor in 1914 who has to sort through a series of photographs from the trenches and decide which ones could be printed. Both these activities are followed up by questions which get students to justify and explain their selection of which information to censor.

The aims and objectives for this lesson are:

Know: How to use historical sources for an enquiry on the First World War?
Understand: What problems face historians using sources from the First World War?
Evaluate: What information would have been published or written about the war?
Skills: Source Analysis, Cause, Consequence & Collaboration

WILF – What Am I Looking For?
Identify & describe: How to use a historical sources during an historical enquiry?
Explain: What problems face historians using sources from the First World War?
Analyse: What information would have been published or written about the war?