The Great War DBQ

Standards Alignment Grading Rubric

Student Directions with Prompt and Rubric Documents

Student Response Sheets with Prompt

Standards Alignment California State Standards for Grade 10 • 10.5 Students analyze the causes and course of the First World War.

– Analyze the arguments for entering into war presented by leaders from all sides of the Great War and the role of political and economic rivalries, ethnic and ideological conflicts, domestic discontent and disorder, and propaganda and nationalism in mobilizing the civilian population in support of “total war.”

– Examine the principal theaters of battle, major turning points, and the importance of geographic factors in military decisions and outcomes (e.g., topography, waterways, distance, climate).

– Explain how the Russian Revolution and the entry of the United States affected the course and outcome of the war.

– Understand the nature of the war and its human costs (military and civilian) on all sides of the conflict, including how colonial peoples contributed to the war effort.

• 10.6 Students analyze the effects of the First World War. – Understand the widespread disillusionment with prewar institutions, authorities, and values that resulted in a void

that was later filled by totalitarians. – Discuss the influence of World War I on literature, art, and intellectual life in the West (e.g., Pablo Picasso, the “lost

generation” of Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway).

Common Core Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Science for Grades 9 & 10 Students: – RH 1 - Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such

features as the date and origin of the information. – RH 2 - Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary

of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text. – RH 3 - Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones

or simply preceded them. – RH 4 - Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing

political, social, or economic aspects of history/social studies. – RH 5 - Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis. – RH 6 - Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including

which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts. – RH 7 - Integrate quantitative or technical analysis (e.g., charts, research data) with qualitative analysis in print or

digital text. – RH 8 - Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claims. – RH 9 - Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.

Common Core Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Science for Grades 9 & 10 Students:

– WHST 1 - Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content. • a. Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an

organization that establishes clear relationships among the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence. • b. Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying data and evidence for each while pointing out the

strengths and limitations of both claim(s) and counterclaims in a discipline-appropriate form and in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.

• c. Use words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims.

• d. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.

• e. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from or supports the argument presented. – WHST 4 - Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to

task, purpose, and audience. – WHST 5 - Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new

approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. – WHST 8 - Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced

searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

– WHST 9 - Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Writing Rubric Category Advanced Proficient Basic Below Basic

Thesis

Contains a well-developed thesis

that clearly addressed the

question.

Thesis addresses question, but not

as focused or comprehensive as

advanced.

Presents a limited, confused, and/or poorly developed

thesis.

Contains no thesis or a thesis that

does not address the question.

Analysis

Presents an effective analysis of all parts of the

question, although treatment may be

uneven.

Analysis deals with part of the

question in some depth, other parts in a more general

way.

Deals with one aspect of the question in a

general way or all parts in a

superficial way with simplistic explanations.

Inadequate or inaccurate

understanding of the question.

Outside Information

Uses a substantial use of relevant

outside information to support thesis.

Supports thesis with some outside

information.

Contains little outside

information or information that is used is inaccurate

or irrelevant.

Inappropriate or no use of outside

information.

Organization Clearly organized and well written.

Shows evidence of acceptable

organization and writing.

Demonstrates weak organization

and/or writing skills that interfere

with comprehension.

Disorganized and poorly written.

Writing May have insignificant errors.

May contain errors that do not

seriously detract from the quality of

the essay.

May contain major errors.

Numerous errors, both major and

minor.

The Great War DBQ Directions: The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of the following documents and your knowledge of the period referring to in the prompt or question. High scores will be earned only by essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period that you have learned in this unit.

Prompt: Using your prior knowledge and analyzing the following documents, assess the nature of war and impact of WWI on young adults and families.

DOCUMENT B “What did the people know of war in 1914, after nearly half a century of peace? They did not know war; they had hardly given it a thought. They still saw it in the perspective of their school readers in of paintings in museums; brilliant cavalry attacks in glittering uniforms, the fatal shot always straight through the heart, the entire campaign a resounding march of victory – ‘We’ll be home at Christmas,’ the recruits shouted laughingly to their mothers in August of 1914…. The young people were honestly afraid that they might miss this most wonderful and exciting experience of their lives;… that is why they shouted and sang in the trains that carried them to the slaughter.” - Austrian writer Stefan Zweig describing the excitement Austrians felt going to war in 1914

DOCUMENT A

DOCUMENT C

DOCUMENT D

DOCUMENT E

DOCUMENT G “Just a line to let you know that I am getting on all right in the Army. I hope that you are all well as I am myself. I am very sorry for what I done when I was at home and will pay you back when I get some more pay. I like the Army very well for I am going to join the Regulars when I have done my time in the Reserve. Then I shall be able to pay you back for I get 30/- [30 shillings/£1.50] as a bounty. I hope you and Dad will forgive me for what I done when at home. I cannot write no more at present for I have to do some more work. Trusting you will forgive me. I remain your son, Stephen Brown” - Personal correspondence of WWI soldier Stephen Brown to his mother

DOCUMENT F

DOCUMENT H

DOCUMENT I

“I guess you have been worried with the air raids. You know dear it's hard to be out here fighting and yet your wife and children can't be safe. Still dearest don't worry, you have a 20,000 to 1 chance and God will watch over you as he has been with me ever since I've been out here. Out here dear we're all pals, what one hasn't got the other has, we try to share each others troubles get each other out of danger. You wouldn't believe the Humanity between men... It's a lovely thing is friendship out here. Please God it won't be long before this war is over, we are pushing old Fritz back, I don't think he will stand the British boys much longer and then we will try and keep a nice home. I will know the value of one now. Goodnight love God bless you and my children and may he soon send me back to those I love is the wish of your Faithful Husband Jack”. - A letter from the frontline from Private Jack Mudd to his wife and family during WWI

Soldiers in the trenches on the Western Front during WWI

DOCUMENT J “...thanks ever so much for your delightfully long letter. As a rule, I am a brute about letter writing, but not out here, things are so different. One is so utterly glad to receive a letter... You can have no idea how one looks for the post, and how disappointed one feels if there is nothing for one: I can quite understand the "lonely soldier" idea at which I once used to laugh. There is an incessant thudding of guns in the distance to concentrate one's mind on the beastly shells. It becomes an obsession with some poor fellows who have been wounded or been through some hideous time in the trenches or the attack. The only antidote is preoccupation of some other kind, something to take the mind off the war. Well, what have we? Reading? A few papers now and again! A game of bridge sitting on the sides of ramshackle temporary beds, or on a soapbox! All the side shows of civilization are afar off, and we live a most primitive life... Great gouts of flame, black smoke, stones and baulks of timber had been flying thirty feet in the air at least... When it was all over, out from what had been the thickest of it, waddled a tank, painted green and yellow, as [if] it might be rubbing its eyes and saying "Dear me, I believe somebody woke me! I think I must find a quieter spot. Everybody too hates mud, but we bathe in it, wade in it, sleep in it and clods of it adorn the most secret recesses of one's clothes, books and papers. To see the poor brutes of horses straining through axle deep mud with the food for the hungry guns goes to my heart even more than seeing the unfortunate men coming out of the front line. The poor beasts have such a pathetic droop, look so patient, and miserable, and respond so bravely to some tremendous effort to suck a limber out of mud... If I wanted to make you creep I might have put a realistic foreground of dead Bosch and our own, fallen in every sort of attitude: some half buried by shell, others in the open. But the reality is too ghastly. There is none of the dignity of death - the flies and rats see to that. The impression left upon one is one of waste. Indeed the whole Country would admirably do as a picture of the material conditions of Hell. All that is pleasant and comely and decent and comfortable has been rent and torn away: all that is sordid, and ghastly and terrible remains. Of course not for one moment am I speaking of the quiet heroism of our average unassuming chaps who stick it all so stolidly, I am speaking of the physical conditions of life.” - Personal correspondence letter from Reverend Canon Cyril Lomax during WWI

DOCUMENT K

DOCUMENT L

DOCUMENT M

War Girls “There’s the girl who clips your ticket for the train, And the girl who speeds the lift from floor to floor, There’s the girl who does a milk-round in the rain,

And the girl who calls for orders at your door. Strong, sensible, and fit,

They’re out to show their grit, And tackle jobs with energy and knack,

No longer caged and penned up, They’re going to keep their end up

Till the khaki soldier boys come marching back.” - Poem written by British poet Jessie Pope in 1916

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Prompt: Using your prior knowledge and analyzing the following documents, assess the nature of war and impact of WWI on young adults and families.

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