Tuesday 25 November 2014

Lesson plan: Tipperary and Censorship

A diversion from the usual posts but one that may be of interest to any teachers who are following - I would use the below with Year 9 - it assumes they have access to a PC and I would have a discussion about what censorship is, possibly linking it to today and ask for ideas about what should be censored in the trenches and why (see last link for more)

Have a look at the small article below - it is taken from Punch magazine in November 1914 - answer the following questions



1) Fill in the missing words

2) Why might they have been censored? Was this a sensible decision?

3) What point is the writer making about censorship in the First World War?

For staff - there are 2 links below - the first one is from R4 Today in 2012 about the history of the song

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9689000/9689513.stm

The second one contains the lyrics:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/itsalongwaytotipperary.htm

further activities - censor a letter - I get students to write a "no holds barred" account of trench life containing all the dangers and irritations - it can be a good revision piece - it is then passed to a partner who censors it using the criteria discussed earlier - (I ask them to highlight/put a thin line through parts to be censored so they can still be read later)

The postcard below has been through the field censor process so can be shown as an example:






Further links can be made to music in WW1 - see link below - recruitment and morale

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3ypr82

and also the role that the postal service played in WW1 - there's a section on censorship in this article as well

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zqtmyrd









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