Concluding Activities - World War I

Explore the timeline with students. Using resources provided throughout the timeline and on Trove, ask students to create a modern interpretation of a World War I newsmap. This activity will allow them to draw on a range of primary and secondary sources in order to gather accurate and relevant information on a specific battle involving Australian troops.

Encourage students to draw on their knowledge gained from studying newsmaps. Great journalists and war correspondents gather information from a variety of sources to enhance their work. With this in mind, have students consider the following when designing a newsmap:

• using symbols and colour to represent different ideas
• incorporating graphics, photographs and text into the newsmap
• using digital technologies

Have students demonstrate their research process by explaining their choices of images, words, colour etc. Ask them to provide examples of other posters, documents, newspapers, maps, people and photographs that influenced their decisions, and explain why they did or did not choose to use elements from these examples.

Have students create a reference list for each source that they consulted in developing their newsmaps.

Now, register a Twitter, Instagram or other social media account. Have students craft social media posts into a digital timeline incorporating other information gained through the research process, including: 

• significant dates and events
• personal stories
• interesting facts

Have students upload their posts to share with others.

This activity could be adapted for other conflicts that Australian forces have been involved in, such as Vietnam, Korean, Iraq and Afghanistan.