Memorializing War and Death - Link to Lesson Plans

This is a google docs link to a 3-day chunk of a unit on Death that I helped design for my English Methods class. It fulfills some English PLOs for grade 12 but is very adaptable to a social studies class. I modeled it after an assignment I did last summer in a course called "War, Myth, Memory, and History."

The basic point of the assignment is to have students work independently to research and present a War Memorial. They have to present the social and historical context of the memorial, any unique rituals or ceremonies that take place at it, and whether it's been a site of controversy. It introduces students to "reading" cultural artefacts as visual texts, with all the meanings and symbols involved in that. One example would be to contrast the rituals surrounding the USA's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with Canada's (we pretty much have none in comparison to theirs. How does this change our perception of war/patriotism/soldiers?). Or (but I don't know how well this would go over with high schoolers!) do a Freudian reading of war memorials: why do so many employ phallic imagery?

Who writes history? What message do war monuments try to convey? How has the emergence of post-modernism changed our representation of war in sculpture? Why are humans so obsessed with ritual? These and other questions can be raised in this 3-day mini-unit, which includes an extensive list of websites for student use, along with mini-lecture notes, criteria and rubrics, and Q&A for a final "gallery walk."