Warfare Without Bullets
Purpose || Materials || Objectives || Lesson || Assessment
The purpose of this assignment is to challenge the students to critically analyze political and identify similarity in art, despite possibly opposing view points of the artists. The students, during this activity, may think the pieces analyzed are opposites and have nothing in common. After careful analyses, they will come to see how, despite the difference in opinion of J. Heartfield and J. Goebbel, there are common elements to their art work. Hopefully through the completion of this assignments students will gain a more critical eye and recognize propaganda not only in the past but in the present.
Materials:
- War Without Bullets PowerPoint
- Directors' Check sheet
- Scribe Worksheet
- WJHS Political Cartoon Analysis Worksheet
- BCR Writing Paper
- Students will be able to identify the basic elements of effective propaganda techniques.
- Students will be able to make generalizations regarding the purpose of War time propaganda after interpreting several propaganda pieces as commissioned by Joseph Goebbels or created by John Heartfield.
Lesson Plan:
- Bring students to a Computer Lab and allow each group to sit together at a computer.
- Class will be divided into groups of three, each
student with a different role.
- Computer: This students role is to manipulate the computer. They will type, use the mouse etc.
- Writer: This person will log in the responses of the various team members to be submit to the teacher. These responses should be written on the Scribe Worksheet.
- Director Person: This person will have a written check sheet of the steps the teacher wishes the students to follow. This person will also serve as the guide, keeping the team on task and going to the instructor for help. Finally, if the instructor is so inclined, this person will be responsible for presenting their groups findings to the rest of the class.
- Students should be directed to the assignment page and told to click on the appropriate link to start the activity.
- The students will be able to click through the directions associated with the project. Oral reminders are found linked within the assignment to help the students understand how to manipulate the power point activity.
- The activity will first ask them to analyze the work commissioned by Joseph Goebbel and then the works of John Heartfield.
- As the students work there way through the activity, the instructor should circulate about the classroom. The instructor should pay careful attention to the "Response Question" answers the Scribes are writing on their worksheets. Students may need guidance in picking out important elements from the pieces of propaganda they choose to analyze. The instructors should make sure students choose elements that stress the common characteristics if all propaganda, as opposed to specific details found only in or two pieces of political propaganda.
- After the students have assed the characteristics of both the men's propaganda they will answer the following questions:
- What common elements did both men’s propaganda share?
- What did is the purpose of all propaganda?
- How would you define propaganda?
- Teachers may which to facilitate a discussion on what propaganda is and how it can be used as a "weapon of war."
- Next, students will answering the following Brief Constructed response question individually:
Some scholars would argue that Propaganda is the "un-bloody" weapon of war. Some might even purport that it is more effective than traditional fighting weapons. Each member of your group should individually asses the importance of propaganda to a war effort in a well written Brief Constructed Response Paragraph.
- A copy of the grading rubric is found on the BCR Writing Paper.
