Raising Voices: World War II in a Song

by Raymond Duchesne, Loretteville, QC, Governor General Award Recipient (2003)

INTENDED AGE/GRADE LEVEL

Senior 4 students

CONCEPTS

Problem-solving; Canada’s participation in World War II and its repercussions on Quebec.

Analyze the consequences of World War II on Québec.

The problem-solving method also has the goal of completing all the content for the 7.1 learning objectives of the Québeçois and Canadian History program. This project follows the 1929 – 1939 period, otherwise known as the Great Depression. The student will discover the different ways Canada and Québec participated in World War II. Afterwards, he will be able to analyze the repercussions of the war on Québec.

The student's’ unfamiliarity with this topic is problematic. They should at first fall back on previously-learned skills to tackle this problem. Present them with the motivation that they need to complete the project even though they do not yet possess the knowledge to do so. This will awake their curiosity to want to know more and put it into action by doing the necessary research.

The students will complete three knowledge outcomes in this lesson plan:

I- KNOWLEDGE OF FACTS (The subject material the students will study via the problem-solving method.)

A. Canada’s participation in the war effort

• Military participation
• Agricultural and industrial production
• The cost of war and its financing
• Economic consequences
• Social consequences
• Rationing
• The role of women during the war
• The effects on women’s rights

B. Québec’s reaction to conscription

• The 1939 election and Mackenzie King’s promises
• Military recruitment
• Plebiscite (questions, results)
• Conscription and its consequences (demonstrations, the race to get married, the rise in Bloc popularity)

II- PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE (How learning takes place)

The student will be able to develop and use the following strategies and skills:

• Identify and establish working procedures
• Plan his work
• Question himself about the project and how he goes about it
• Play an active role on the team
• Use previously-learned knowledge
• Ask questions and offer hypotheses
• Describe, analyze and synthesize
• Focus on the causes and consequences of an event
• Group the research taken from books, periodicals, articles, drawings, diagrams, etc.
• Select the pertinent information
• Organize the information in the form of text, diagrams, tables, etc.
• Write the copy
• Establish connections between different elements
• Use different reading strategies

III- CONDITIONAL KNOWLEDGE (The moment and context when students can apply the facts and procedures.)

These newly acquired skills are life skills as well, allowing the student to compare:

• Current economic conditions with the war years, to see what is similar or different.
• Women’s status in society today with that of the war years, and what benefits have been achieved
• Canada’s participation in more recent wars, to see what is similar or different
• And evaluate Canada’s position in conflicts around the world

Procedural knowledge helps the student to:

• Use prior knowledge in the face of new situations
• Elaborate on theories to overcome obstacles
• Evaluate different solutions to problems before following an action
• Evaluate the possible consequences of an action
• Organize information to have the best understanding of a situation
• Analyze a broad range of information, for example, images, cartoons, tables, diagrams, found in different journals and mediums
• Create a plan of action before beginning a task
• Reuse reliable teamwork strategies in other circumstances

ACTIVITY: WORLD WAR II IN SONG

The Montréal-based film studio CINÉLUNE, Inc. recently received from the Canadian Ministry of Defense, the mandate to make a montage of World War II film footage. The goal is to create material that will be made available to schools to help teach history. All film clips shown will be narrated and accompanied by songs describing Canada’s participation in the war. The company has hired professionals to provide narration; however, to keep within budget, it would like the Senior 4 students to create the accompanying songs. The resulting songs should adhere to the production company’s requirements. The completed works will then be dispatched to the CINÉLUNE where they will choose the most interesting songs to accompany their films.

FILM PRODUCTION REQUIREMENTS:

TOPIC: Describe Québec’s and Canada’s participation in World War II and analyze the consequences.

TASKS:

• Imagine that you are participating in the production of a film on World War II
• You have created a song to correspond with clips illustrating Canada’s and Québec’s participation in the war.
• This song should provide a maximum amount of information on what happened in Canada and Québec during the war.

APPROACH:

• The project should be supported with a series of documents, chosen at your discretion. You can also use your textbook, as well as other references made available in class.
• Each student should first skim the material to get an overall idea of the subject matter.

In Teams of Two:

• Identify the main themes in your notes. You must include all the themes required by the production company.
• Select the pertinent information and make notes on loose leaf paper using titles, subtitles, underlining/highlighting, statistics, etc.
• After taking notes, select the most important points to include in your song.
• Choose the music for your song from a list of familiar tunes, or one that you prefer. Possible choices are: Au clair de la lune, Le bon roi Dagobert, Sur le pont d’Avignon, Vive le vent, Oh Christmas Tree, Les anges dans nos campagnes, Passe-Partout, À la claire fontaine, Le temps des cathédrales, O Canada, Champs-Èlysées, La complainte du phoque en Alaska (Very popular ‘70s song by Beau Dommage).
• Write the lyrics for your song in three drafts (rough, revised, final). Ensure that it fits with the tune you have chosen.
• Your song should be submitted by the end of the third class.

DEVELOPMENT OF THIS CLASS ACTIVITY

This activity was developed according to a “problem-solving” model. In this example, the student is placed in a situation or a context where the student has a goal to attain and some constraints or obstacles to overcome. It is through active cognitive research and the production of the required task that the student will learn. The students may not be familiar with the topic of the study and the teacher does not give it to them. It is the students themselves who acquire and shape their knowledge of the subject. It is this lack of knowledge, this cognitive imbalance which will motivate them to undertake their tasks in an effort to understand the chosen topic.

TEACHER’S PREPARATION

• Tell students about the objectives for this subject and remind them about the period that preceded it (the Great Depression).
• Have the students reflect on the usefulness of this subject by connecting it with the present. For example: Has Canada been involved in any wars recently? What was our level of participation? What is the cost of our participation in armed conflicts? Compare Canada’s current military presence with that of World War II.)
• Provide the historical context for their subject.

How to Start: You can show the students posters of the time period illustrating certain aspects of Canadian participation in WWII. Ask them to describe from their knowledge how Canada participated and have them hypothesize the possible consequences that this participation had on the economy and the political and social order. Note: you can highlight certain elements raised by the group but be sure not to validate or invalidate their theories nor respond to the questions asked. The students should be able to do that after completing their research.

• Present them with “World War II in Song” (Students learn of their task)
• Make the student describe the project in their own words. Ensure that they all understand the task at hand.
• If need be, have the students clarify the problem and provide them with the necessary vocabulary, as they should at least have good understanding of terms such as plebiscite, rationing, conscription.
• Outline the procedure: They will work in teams of two; Use the following material—primary source material hand-outs, student textbooks, and any other available reference material, etc.; Complete the project in three 75-minute classes (1.5 periods to understand the requirements and do research; 1.5 periods to write and finish the song)

PRODUCTION

• Ask the students to pair up.
• Ensure that each team understands what is required of them and have them discuss how they plan to complete their project.

Have students create a plan of action to:

• Divide up tasks.
• Create a timeline for completing the project.
• Outline the criteria they must follow.
• Specify what form the project will take.
• Identify the difficulties they will most likely encounter.
• Have students identify the pertinent themes of World War II on which they will have to base their research (military participation, agricultural and industrial production, cost of war and its financing, economic consequences, social consequences, rationing, role of women during the war, effects on women’s rights, Quebec’s reaction to conscription, the 1939 election and Mackenzie King’s promise, military recruitment, and the plebiscite (questions, results).
• The students are responsible for selecting the information for the topic they have reserved. They may use a number of strategies to do this: class notes, prioritization, organization, material usage, making hypotheses, use of prior knowledge (facts and procedures). The selection of information is very important because it is at this point that the students put their subject knowledge into the requested format (song). The teacher should see to it that all the content elements have been met by each team. At this stage students can take personal notes on loose leaf. It is important that the teacher adequately counsel the students on useful note-taking strategies (making titles, subtitles, highlighting/underlining, providing statistics if necessary, etc.).
• The team will organize and construct their information to fit their chosen tune.
• The final project can be handed in to the teacher and/or presented in class

** It would be good to guide the students through the process by ensuring they have:

• Agreed on their topic and the tune they want to use
• Selected the key points that must be included in their work
• Made a plan
• Written a rough first draft
• Corrected mistakes, tweaked phrasing to suit the measure, etc.
• Provided a clean copy of the final draft.

Conclusion:

In the production phase, the students should be acquiring their subject knowledge themselves. By actively participating in the research and prioritizing pertinent information, they can organize their lesson and envisage the creation of the final outcome. The role of the teacher then is to guide the student in the planning of their work, the researching of information and in the organization of the final product. It may also be to remind students of how to use different strategies, encourage them to make an effort and show them that they are making progress.

INTEGRATION

• Students will present their work to the class by singing their team’s song.
• After the presentation, the teacher should avoid at all costs having to re-explain or go over the information in a lecture format. This would give students the message that their work had no purpose.
• The teacher can, however, provide additional information that was collected by the team, or supplementary texts/anecdotes/illustrations/films, etc. to the class.

To objectify: Return to the point of the exercise.

• Take note of the new things that have been learned.
• Ask students to verbalize what they learned about their topic.
• Reflect on the experience of this project.
• What worked well, what didn’t work well
• What difficulties did they encounter?
• Identify the steps and procedures that the team followed to complete their task.
• Evaluate their teamwork.
• What difficulties did they encounter and how did the team solve them?
• Identify the changes that you can make for the next time you use the Problem-solving method.

Make fuller use of their completed project and the knowledge they acquired: Get the students to ask questions and have them compare our current situation with wartime.

• What is the role of the media, then and now?
• Why is there censorship during war? Does it exist today?
• Who benefits from war?
• What are the costs of war?
• What is the role of the Canadian army today?
• Should military service be compulsory, as it is in other countries?

REINVESTMENT

Finally, to verify the acquired knowledge and comprehension on their topic, you can:

• ask students to provide a written sketch of Canada’s and Québec’s participation in World War II and the consequences of their actions, from the topics covered in their work
• distribute to the students a schematic template and ask them to complete using what they have already learned.
• ask them to read their textbook for a last review

About the Educator:

Raymond Duchesne has dedicated his life to unearthing, creating and experimenting with new teaching methods to awaken his students' interest in history. Highly original projects and simulations figure prominently in his teaching strategy (film scripts, fair booths, historical games, theatre, role-playing, police investigations, etc.)

With this approach, the students become more motivated because they have to discover history for themselves and build their own knowledge. They gain experience in applying historical methods and develop many skills and strategies that will continue to serve them in their adult lives. Raymond has also written a workbook that is used throughout Québec, promoting a complex intellectual approach. He has been invited to many teaching conferences and has conducted more than 30 workshops in Québec and the rest of Canada.