“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”
Erich Maria Remarque
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque: I taught this book every year that I taught World Literature. And while it may seem overkill to do this novel right after The Things They Carried, both of these books do analyze war and humanity from two very different perspectives. The overriding theme for teaching this book, for me, was: "How do you write about war without romanticizing it?" As good as The Thing Things They Carry is - I feel that this book does a better job of achieving just that (though not perfect, as you will find out when you get to the story of the man of the man on the bus).
I also believe this book and the previous one compliment each other wonderfully. This story is written by a German - the "enemy" - though it is quite interesting that most students think he is American until it is explicitely pointed out that he is not. That in itself makes this book teaching time and time again.
One last thing - there was a movie made from this book a few years ago that was just horrible (though it was nominated for an Academy Award). I missed the greatest thing that this book does - and here I'm quoting from William Ruehlmann who wrote one of the great books on Journalism (that I used in my World Literature Journalism class for years). Here's his quote: "If you want to tell the story of an army - tell the story of a single soldier." Yes - and this book does just that.
All Quiet Bookmark with Reading Schedule: (Docx PDF) that we read with due dates and references to poems and other related material that are, then, available at a glance - It allows them to plan their time and for students that need more time for reading - they can begin early (I try to give them the bookmarks a week early. This picture to the left shows both the front and the back. Besides the due dates - this book mark also includes things to take notes on and quotes from the poems and songs we listen to beforehand.
This story about a group of passengers on a train in Italy - during World War 1, is a great way to introduce students to the idea of Home vs. Front that will be so pervasive in their next novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. It is also short enough, that it can be read and discussed in a single class period. And as the icing on the cake - at the very finish of the school year, we read another story by the same author - "The Jar". There are four different ways to teach this story - that are included here: 1) Read Aloud & Discuss 2) Read silently (AP) & Discuss 3) Group Work 4) Ringmaster Teacher Led Discussion.
I am not sure - if this lesson or the next goes first. Looking them over, I can see there are advantages to going either way - and I may have switched it up over the years. Today's lesson is a traditional (well - traditional in my class) collection of poems that is read before a novel. Poems & Songs that are related thematically to what we will be reading together. Rather, than breaking the class up into small groups (partners) like we usually do for these poems - we will read them - mark them up as we read - discuss briefly and move on.
Three front-loading lessons may seem like a lot for this novel - and yet (as Leo Gursky would say) if you count the previous book, The Things They Carried - it's really four. This was the first - and I still think - most important prologue of a lesson that we do. Why does this book stand out among so many war novel? Why has it been called the greatest antiwar book of all time. I believe there is a reason - there is a very specific way to make a text "anti-war", to take away its power to romanticize. And this is the question that I want in the back of my students' heads as they read.
There are so many important things to cover (and don't forget what we've set up with those 3 prenovel classes); some of those are: how it was a good day, the power of adults over their charges, their friend Franz and his terrible predicament, and perhaps most important: The idea that there are two sets of RULES - one for the front, one for home. We will try to cover it all through Ring-master type teacher led discussion.
As always, this group work covers a lot. The power relationships, the surprising "good side" to the abuse they receive as recruits, connections to The Things They Carried, Candide, and more. We also play a very modern song by Suzanne Vega about the loss of limbs - (metaphorical and literal). See my page on Group Work. I also include some Lesson Notes that I used for having a Discussion for Chapter 2 in place of the Group Work.
As always, this group work covers a lot. The power relationships, the surprising "good side" to the abuse they receive as recruits, connections to The Things They Carried, Candide, and more. We also play a very modern song by Suzanne Vega about the loss of limbs - (metaphorical and literal). See my page on Group Work. I also include some Lesson Notes that I used for having a Discussion for Chapter 2 in place of the Group Work.
Though the lesson is designed (usually) as a Ringmaster Teacher - the most crucial part of the class is when the students are asked to examine a single page in the book and put the pieces together: The comparison of the men to the innocent horses - and then later the horses are shown to be innocent victims - much like the poor recruit (and all of the men really) that is shown at the end of the reading.
A 10 minute lesson done after reading Chapter 4 that involves two readings - one from Chapter 4 of All Quiet - the other from James Joyce's "The Dead" - It must be raining or snowing to do this lesson. This lesson should be done any time after Chapter 4 is read. I usually just added it on to a lesson - if it was raining or snowing.
There are things that happen in Chapter 5 of this book that I believe are best handled and discussed in a small group (or alone - if the student didn't do the reading for class). Group Work is the perfect way to allow students to have more nuanced, more intimate discussions (especially since they know their groups so well by this time of the year) than they would in the larger class setting. There is also a version for Remote Learning (with some of the special concerns that type of learning brings) and a shortened version (for nonhonors or a shortened class period).
Chapter 6 is huge and I've always felt it made sense for the students' reading homework as well as what we can cover in one discussion - to break it up into two parts. At times, I have also gone over Chapter 5 (which was done in group work) as well as this first part of Chapter 6, and while I will include the Student Slide - I do not have my notes for the Chapter 5 part of a Row Discussion. I have also included a version of the Row Reading Slides that has a slide to assign student Rows, remotely.
So for this exercise, what I've done is to pull some together some quotes from this part of the reading along with a few pertinent quotes from The Things They Carried and one Gertrude Stein quote. The students watch an extended scene from the movie showing the horror of trench warfare - and then do a close reading of the quotes - connect them to what they saw and to each other - and try to come up with an overriding thesis - from which they will write a very short essay (a few paragraphs). The quotes are arranged thematically - as on two sides of a trench.
This Ringmaster Teacher discussion (see my page on Class Discussions) brings together so much of what has happened up to this point (including the preReading lessons). Paul and the men somehow believe that their interaction with the young French Women can bring them back from this "front" world they've fallen into. To bring them back to the youth - that's been stolen away from them. In the end - they "wake up" and realize that it is all transactional - and their salvation - if it comes - must come from somewhere else.
One class should logically follow another - ideas, texts, concepts should build on what has come before. In the previous lesson - we discussed the "deflating" of the Romantic Idyll that Paul and his friends have with the French Women. The second part of Chapter 7 is a wonderful bookend to those events. Paul comes home - and the expectation, of course, that leave is a wonderful thing. To be away from this horrific war - how can it be bad. And of course - as with the encounter at the "Front"; this encounter at "Home" proves just as detrimental to Paul's mental (and as it turns out later, physical) well-being. Because the parts of this Chapter mirror each other - it's a great opportunity to do the first part as a discussion - and this part as a Group Work.
I call this lesson, "No Man's Home" because it becomes a 2nd "No Man's Land" for Paul. It is between those two worlds of "Home" and "Front" that have been talked about since the beginning of this our discussions on this novel. Paul is neither "home" nor can he leave the "front" behind. I found a Vertext - using the words from the text to spark conversation about these feelings and the rest of what happens in this chapter, ideal.
Having just come off of a Vertext Whole Class Discussion - it makes sense to get students into small groups. Especially given the intimacy of Chapter 9. There are two things that happen in Chapter 9 that especially lend themselves to smaller groups: 1) Paul killing, by hand, Gerard Duval - and the aftermath of that act; and 2) Paul making it back to his own trenches only to see a sniper cold-heartedly shooting enemy soldier after enemy soldier - and the discussion that ensues from that act about the varying degrees of morality within the world of the "front".
Having just come off of a Vertext Whole Class Discussion - it makes sense to get students into small groups. Especially given the intimacy of Chapter 9. There are two things that happen in Chapter 9 that especially lend themselves to smaller groups: 1) Paul killing, by hand, Gerard Duval - and the aftermath of that act; and 2) Paul making it back to his own trenches only to see a sniper cold-heartedly shooting enemy soldier after enemy soldier - and the discussion that ensues from that act about the varying degrees of morality within the world of the "front".
And so having just had a discussion on the "idyll" and the consequence to the French Village that Paul and the men are "guarding" - now comes the consequences to Paul, himself. As with his earlier leave home (Chapters 7-8), the lark that the men have leaves them in a "No-Mans-Land" - which ultimately contributes to Paul & Albert getting wounded. While in the hospital - they learn there is another world, with its own set of rules - and that sometimes miracles do happen. This chapter - and hopefully the Group Work - set the students up for their reading of the last two chapters in the novel.
There is so much to go over today - I know of no other way than Ringmaster Teacher - and I want to leave some time at the end of class for two things - every student's comment, question, or takeaway from the novel - and time to show the very ending of the excellent movie version of All Quiet on the Western Front from 1930. We will talk about the ending - how the Hospital Chapter gets the readers hopes up - only to have them dashed by the end of Kat - and then Paul. And we will get back to that guy on the bus.
Students will watch a film - answering some questions immediately - and more involved thinking prompts at home.
Grand Illusion is about French Prisoners of War and their attempts to escape the German Prison camp that they are in. However, it is even more about the idea of "class" and its illusions - along with the illusions of the natural boundaries that are the basis of war.
Students will watch a film - answering some questions immediately - and more involved thinking prompts at home. Duck Soup is the movie that I first paired with All Quiet on the Western Front - before changing to Grand Illusion. Duck Soup is a Marx Brothers film - and a film that many consider the funniest ever made (though of course comedy is a very subjective genre). The important thing is that it works so well with All Quiet. Like their earlier novel, Candide - Duck Soup is a satire.
A very early essay in my career - in fact, it was modeled on the one I had to do for my college class (where All Quiet was assigned). In addition to the prompt (see below), I give the students some tips and additional instructions. There is also an extra credit essay on comparing the book to the 1930 movie of the novel. The reasons for there not being more essays is quite simple: The movie questions started becoming more and more like mini-essays and the students were already doing a lot of writing on the book. 2) There was also an Illuminated Text Project (first) and a General Creative Response Project (second) that took up a lot of the students time and gave them a chance to respond to All Quiet on the Western Front.
Originally done as an exclusive Illuminated Text project - I expanded it to include any kind of creative response. The one requirement was that it had to be thoughtful - like the book - and it had to take a fair amount of effort. Students had over the two week holiday break to supplement their time - and because they could choose the medium that they worked in - I hope it allowed them to do what they liked - what they enjoyed - as a specific response to what we had just read (and the works just before that as well - going all the way back to Candide (where the title of the assignment comes from) and especially All Quiet and The Things They Carried.
Once upon a time there was an Illuminated Text Project for All Quiet on the Western Front. That project (I've included the handout below) eventually became The Harmony of War - Creative Response Project which gave students a lot more latitude in how they wanted to creatively respond to the novel. And yet (as Bruno would say) - we have a wonderful collection of Illuminated Texts from All Quiet on the Western Front - both from the original project and from the newer Harmony of War Creative Response. This lesson has the students watching and taking note of these videos - not only to gain a new and different understanding of the book that they just finished - but to inspire them in their own creative response projects.
There are many versions of this exam - this one focuses on the novel, the stories we read before, and Grand Illusion. It is more than possible to write an exam that requires thinking and does not try to "trick" the student - but rather to try and assess how much the student has been paying attention in class to what's been going on. It is also important to give thoughtful multiple choice exams because it is the kind of thing that the students may encounter again and again in their academic lives - starting with their ACT/SAT tests - and later in college.
