Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

I'm so glad you decided to learn with me today.

We're in the World At War: Short Stories unit.

Today we are going to flex our creative muscles.

We're going to be inspired by a memoir by a woman called Vera Brittain about her experiences on the home front during World War I, and we are going to use that as stimulus to plan a letter in which we adopt the persona of someone who experiences the home front.

I cannot wait to hear all of your fantastic ideas.

I'm gonna be your support and guide as we work through today's lesson together.

Let's get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, you're going to have planned an imaginative letter, which captures some common aspects of life on the home front of World War I.

We are going to look at an extract from a memoir called "Testament of Youth" by a woman called Vera Brittain, who wrote about her experiences on the home front of World War I, we're gonna use that as inspiration to help us create our imaginative letter.

There are some key words which are going to be referenced throughout today's lesson, and they're gonna help us achieve our objective.

And they are memoir, impotent, ignorance, methods, and persona.

Let's go through their definitions.

So memoir is a nonfiction account of something written from a person's memories.

And we're going to look at Vera Brittain's memoir "Testament of Youth" in order to inspire our own creative writing.

Impotent, this is a feeling of powerlessness.

Ignorance, a lack of knowledge of something.

Methods, the tools a writer uses to create their work; structure and language choices are the most obvious examples.

And we're going to look at some of Vera Brittain's methods in her extract from "Testament of Youth", and we're gonna see if we can mimic them.

We'll use them as inspiration in our own letter writing.

And then persona.

This is a character you adopt when writing a first person text.

You're gonna write a first person text today.

You're going to write a letter imagining that you are or you're gonna plan a letter imagining you are a person on the home front.

So you are going to adopt a persona in order to do this.

So these keywords are gonna be referenced throughout and they're gonna help us achieve our objective.

A lesson outline for today, we're gonna start off just by recalling some key details about the home front.

And then we are going to plan our own letter.

So let's start off with the home front.

So World War I is sometimes considered a total war.

This means that civilians in Britain are considered participants and victims of World War I just like the soldiers on the front line.

Now, civilians on the home front felt the impact of the war in a number of ways.

So anxiety and fear, people were scared for their loved ones on the front line, but also afraid of the threat of bombs dropped by German zeppelins, which is a type of airship.

Proximity, much of the war took place in France, a country that seemed very close to home.

In addition, the idea of Britain being invaded seemed possible.

So the war seemed close, there was proximity to the war, to the fighting itself.

Ignorance, many who returned from the frontline never spoke of their experiences.

And even if they did, it was hard to truly understand what trench warfare was really like.

So the sort of barrier between who had experienced trench warfare and those who had been at home.

Nobody's fault, but each side was ignorant of what the other had suffered.

And that was very difficult for both soldiers and for people on the home front.

Shortage of food.

So production of food decreased and prices increased, queuing for food became commonplace, and rationing was introduced in 1917.

So a bit of privation, a bit of suffering in terms of food.

And freedom, with so many men away fighting, women became less confined to the home and were employed.

For example, by 1918, about 700,000 women worked in munitions factories, but this also made them targets for German bombs.

So this kind of a positive, which some people might argue is a positive came out of World War I in terms of women's rights.

The freedom that they were afforded was for many unheard of.

It hadn't happened to them before the war, but now they were employed so they were no longer in the domestic sphere, confined to the home, but were actually finding employment.

And lots of women reported that they really enjoyed this found freedom.

However, there was an edge.

It made them targets for German bombs because many of the women who were working in factories were making something for the war effort, lots of them at munitions factories, so making bullets, making bombs.

And so this made them a target for the German bombers because they wanted to stop these women who were working in the munitions factories helping the war effort.

Now I'd like you to imagine you are a civilian on the home front, writing about your experiences in a diary or a letter.

And consider these key aspects, these key ways in which civilians were affected by the war.

Discuss what tone, attitude and ideas might you want to express given the impacts of war.

So this isn't you planning a letter, it's just an initial discussion thinking, what are the kind of things that I might express if I were writing a letter or a diary entry during World War I and I was a civilian on the home front? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

A combination there of kind of linking your contextual ideas to your creativity.

So some people will, I'd really like to express the deep, deep anxiety that I felt for loved ones who were far away.

Remember the war went on for four years.

So feeling that intensity of anxiety over four years as a really prolonged period of time to feel that level of stress.

And some people were thinking I might talk about the level of loss that I felt not just of the life that I had, but also of day-to-day things, like the privation of food, not having quite enough food and having lost or not having that connection, that daily connection with people who I really loved.

So brothers, fathers, uncles, all off fighting in the war.

And then a few people saying maybe there would be if you were a woman who had been employed and were no confined to the domestic sphere.

And if that is something that you particularly enjoyed, you might be talking about the kind of complicated emotions you are having towards that freedom, which has come at a very heavy cost because your country is at war.

So a range of different ideas that you might, some of the emotions that you might be talking about in a letter or a diary entry.

Now, Vera Brittain, 1893 to 1970, she was a British writer, and Brittain was 20 when the war began in 1914.

In 1915, she gave up studying at the University of Oxford to become a nurse.

And she lost her fiance, a man called Roland Leighton, her brother and close friends to World War I.

She's perhaps best remembered for her memoir, "Testament of Youth" in which she recants her personal experiences of war on the home front.

Now Andeep reads an extract from "Testament of Youth" and says, "Arguably, the most powerful feelings Brittain expresses are those of impotence and anger." So impotence, this word we had at the beginning, one of our key words, so powerlessness and anger.

Now I'd like you to discuss just using these facts Andeep's argument here, why might Brittain express these particular emotions? Pause a video and discuss the question now.

Really nice discussion there.

Tying together this argument from Andeep to some key facts we have about her life.

Well, maybe she feels some anger because of the level of loss that she experienced over these four years, losing her fiance, losing her brother, losing her close friends.

And we can see that she took some pretty strong actions.

She decided to leave university to become a nurse.

So she obviously wanted to support the war effort in some way, but maybe she didn't feel as powerful as she perhaps wanted to.

She could just see the carnage that the war was unleashing and felt that she couldn't do much about it.

So maybe that is where that feeling of impotence comes through.

Now, arguably Brittain's anger and feelings of impotence are fueled by experiences of loss and sacrifice.

Her experiences are in some way typical of the home front.

So lots of people lost people and lots of people had to make very, very difficult sacrifices.

Furthermore, her act of writing about her experiences was typical.

Many kept diaries and letters in order to understand their experiences.

So the idea that you should record in some way your experiences of this event of World War I.

When Brittain came to write "Testament of Youth", she returned to her diaries to support her memoir.

So her diaries became a very useful source for her.

She could remember what had happened day-to-day, and her feelings because she had these diaries to rely on, diaries that had recorded what it was like to experience the war.

Now here's a quotation Brittain lifts from her diary to include in her memoir.

"Morning," it, her diary observes, "creeps on into afternoon and afternoon passes into evening, while I go from one occupation to another, in apparent unconcern, but all the time this gnawing anxiety beneath it all." So she includes this quotation from her diary in her memoir, I'd like you to discuss what feelings does Brittain express in her diary in this quotation from her diary in her memoir? And what methods does Brittain use to convey these feelings? Pause the video and discuss these questions now.

Welcome back, after a really careful discussion of this section from Brittain's diary where she's powerfully conveying some feelings of frustration, of boredom.

Some people saying, "Well, I think she also even moves into anger here." But the most powerful emotion that comes through is this gnawing anxiety.

So she says, "Time is moving very, very slowly.

It creeps on into the afternoon and I've got this gnawing anxiety." So those were the two methods that people were exploring most powerfully.

So this idea of creep moving incredibly, incredibly slowly and then this gnawing anxiety.

To gnaw something means to take little bites out of it.

So she feels like she's being eaten or consumed by her worry, by her stress.

So really clear focus discussion there and seeing that in her diary, she's trying as much as she possibly can to express her inner most feelings about what it means to wait on the home front for loved ones to return.

So check for understanding so that we can really understand what has Vera Brittain done? Why did she decide to write "Testament of Youth"? I'd like you to complete these sentence stems. So Brittain wrote "Testament of Youth" because.

Brittain wrote "Testament of Youth", but.

and Brittain wrote "Testament of Youth" so.

Pause the video and match the sentence stems to their endings.

Complete this check now.

Well done if you matched Brittain wrote "Testament of Youth" because she wanted to capture and share her lived experiences on the home front.

Brittain wrote "Testament of Youth", but she also wrote a diary during the war, which she relies on in her memoir.

So really distinguishing between a diary and a memoir.

And Brittain wrote "Testament of Youth" so we can have some understanding of the feelings of impotence, anger, and ignorance, many felt on the home front.

So well done for showing a really good understanding of these two types of nonfiction, texts, memoir, and then a diary, and also this key word impotence, this powerlessness that Brittain was feeling.

So I would like you to read the extract from "Testament of Youth".

This can be found in the additional materials.

And the table on the board, you can see it identifies some key feelings expressed in the extract.

We've got impotence, anger, fear, and ignorance.

And for each, I'd like you to identify one quotation, just one which expresses this emotion.

So select the one that you think is the most powerful to you.

And then I would like you to explain the effect of the methods that Brittain uses.

So just as we did when we looked at that quotation from her diary, the idea of at time creeping or the gnawing anxiety that she feels.

We talked about the methods used there and we talked about their effect.

You're going to now apply this to your table.

So you're gonna pause the video, you're going to read through that extract and complete the table.

Pause the video and complete these tasks now.

Welcome back, lovely to see these tables being populated by some choice quotations from the extract, and then some really nice explorations of the methods that Brittain is using in order to convey her experiences on the home front.

So let's have a look at a section of Andeep's table.

We are looking at where he's exploring this feeling of impotence, this powerlessness that Brittain expresses.

And the quotation he selected is, "I wandered with my basket of primroses up and down the Buxton streets." That's from the very beginning of the extract.

And his exploration of the method he's looked at, wandered, the verb and it's suggests an aimlessness.

And he said up and down, which is an idiom, which means a turn of phrase.

And Brittain has nothing to do, nowhere to go, in contrast to the busy war effort.

So we've got methods there, he's identified a verb and an idiom.

And he's also explored those methods by just making a little note of their effect.

So I'd like you to self-assess your own table using the checklist.

Have you got methods? And have you explored those methods? Pause the video and complete the self-assessment now.

Welcome back, nice to see people just refining their tables there.

So you might have had an exploration of a method, but you didn't actually note down what method had been used and you've put that in now.

You've just developed, rather than just identifying a method, you've said actually I can talk a little bit about the effect.

So using Andeep's model there and using that checklist just to make sure that your exploration and identification is up to scratch, well done.

Okay, we're going to move on to our second learning cycle now.

This exploration of Brittain's extract from "Testament of Youth" is going to be incredibly helpful.

It's gonna inspire us when we plan our own letter.

So you are going to adopt to the persona of someone on the home front during World War I, you're gonna send a letter to a loved one.

Your knowledge of the home front and Brittain's extract from "Testament of "Youth" will support and inspire your letter.

Today we are just gonna complete the planning stage.

So first I would like you to create your persona.

Now, Vera Brittain, we know she was a real person and here are some of the things that we know about her in terms of her experiences of the home front.

She was 20 years old when the war started.

She'd left university to become a nurse and she lost her fiance, brother, and two close friends to World War I.

Now your persona, I'd like you to discuss these questions so that you can create a convincing persona.

Who are you? Your name, age, occupation.

What year of the war is it? Is it near the beginning 1914, or is it near to the end? What have you experienced so far in terms of loss and sacrifice? And what is your overall attitude towards the war? So these are all things that can help you create a really, really convincing persona.

So pause the video and discuss these questions now.

Welcome back, a really lively discussion there, can see we've got a range of personas in the room, a range of characters.

I'm looking forward to hearing their voices.

So some people wanting to say, "I'm gonna be one of those women who went out to work and actually really enjoyed that experience because I think that's a really interesting complex emotion that I'll be able to explore in my letter." And others saying, "I'm gonna focus like Brittain on the idea of that anxiety, that gnawing anxiety as I wait for loved ones to come back.

I want to be a sibling with a large family.

And consider the idea that they are all away at war." So a range of personas and feelings that go can be expressed in this letter.

So this is the structure you'll follow when writing your letter.

Paragraph one, you're going to establish who you're writing to and your relationship.

Paragraph two, you're gonna present one aspect of your life on the home front.

Paragraph three you'll present another aspect of your life on the home front.

And paragraph four, you'll come to a conclusion and sign off your letter.

So again, I would like you to discuss just as we did before, so we're always deepening, developing this idea of a convincing persona.

Who are you writing to? What is your relationship? What aspect of the home front do you want to focus on in your second paragraph? And then in your third paragraph, and then finding what attitude or tone do you want to convey? So pause video, give these questions the time they deserve so you can really develop a convincing persona and you can start to build on these ideas so you've got a really clear idea of what your letter might look like.

Pause a video and discuss these questions now.

Welcome back, really, really nice to hear the development of these personas and people starting to say who they are writing to.

So a brother, a husband, an uncle, a cousin, a close friend.

So all these different people you could be writing to who are away fighting on the front line.

The aspect of the home front that you want to focus on.

So a range between the anxiety, the freedom, some people focusing on the shortages of food, really wanting to develop the exploration of queuing outside a shop and thinking how alien that is to the normal experience.

And then the final, this attitude or tone.

So a range of feelings here.

Some people really despairing, some people feeling resentment, bitterness, anger at the war.

So I can see how all these different letters are going to capture experiences at the home front, but different experiences of the home front.

Now check for understanding before we move on to our planning.

We know that we need to plan for four paragraphs.

What is the focus of the two missing paragraphs? Pause the video and complete this check for understanding now.

Welcome back, well done if you identified that in paragraph one, you've got to establish who you are writing to and your relationship.

And then in paragraph that you've got to present an additional aspect of your life on the home front.

So the main focus, the middle part of that lesson is really going to be showing off your knowledge of what it means to live on the home front, what those experiences might be like.

And a second check for understanding.

Here are some example details from a letter that a pupil wrote.

And I'd like you to match each detail to its section.

So the opening introduction, which establishes a relationship with a person, presentation of an aspect of life on the home front, and then overall attitude to the war.

Can you identify which detail comes from which section? Pause the video and complete the matching exercise now.

Well done if you match the introduction to that greeting, "Dearest heart comma." If you match the presentation of an aspect of the home front to "Life plods along.

Nothing to do but be eaten by anxiety." I like how this pupil has relied on Vera Brittain, that metaphor, gnawing anxiety, they've used it as inspiration for their own sentence.

And then overall attitude towards the war, "I can't wait for this stretched war to be over and I know even then that its legacy will endure." So just some example details from a pupil's letter and maybe some inspiration there.

And you can see how they've been inspired by Brittain and hopefully that will inspire you as well.

So our practise task, now we're going to bullet point the details that we'll include in each paragraph.

Like Brittain, I'd like you to consider the methods you will use to express powerful emotions.

So we've got a paragraph plan there, paragraph one, two, three and four.

And we've got the focus for each paragraph.

Now you're not writing the full letter, you're just bullet pointing the details you would like to include in each paragraph.

That will mean when you come to write the letter, you've got this watertight plan and the writing will come very, very easily.

So pause the video, give this activity the time that it deserves so you've got a really rich, convincing persona that you can convey in this letter.

Pause a video and complete this task now.

Welcome back, such a delight to see such well-populated plans with people really exploring different aspects of the home front, but crucially really paying attention, close attention to the methods they want to use to convey some of those most powerful emotions.

I can see some little nods to Vera Brittain's "Testament of "Youth" as well, which is really nice to see.

So some self-assessment.

I'd like to just show you a section of Andeep's planning.

So we are looking at his paragraph two.

He is presenting one aspect of his life on the home front and his clear focus is freedom.

So that's what he wants to explore in that paragraph two.

He's got a consideration of methods because I can see that he wants to use this phrase or some kind of permutation of this phrase, "Crash, boom and churn of the machinery reminds me of the constant threat of bombs you must be facing, my thoughts, crash, boom and churn as I think of you." So you can see how he's starting to really consider the methods he's going to include in order to express his emotions.

And he's clearly been inspired by Brittain.

So she talked about her thoughts swinging dizzily.

And Andeep has used that to say, "Well, I'm gonna think about my thoughts as well, but I'm expressing it in a slightly different way." And then Brittain also talked about how the the time creeped, creep, crept, sorry, from the morning to the afternoon.

And Andeep is also saying, "Well, I'm gonna express how slowly time goes as well in this factory.

The tick of the clock factory marks each moment I'm away from you." So I'd like you to self-assess, ensuring that each paragraph meets this checklist.

So have you got a really clear focus for each paragraph? Have you got a consideration of methods and have you in some way be inspired by Brittain? Pause a video and complete the self-assessment now.

Welcome back, some lovely editing there.

Just refining the focus of some of these paragraphs or maybe carefully looking at a method again and thinking, can I improve the particular metaphor, the use of alliteration, the use of onomatopoeia, the powerful verb? Can I improve that so that I can express this particular emotion more effectively? I didn't steal anything or get inspired by Brittain.

I'm just gonna return to that extract and think what would I want to take from here? In summary, the home front refers to the idea that civilians in Britain felt the impact of World War I in their daily lives.

It was common for those on the home front to feel fear and impotence whilst their loved ones were on the front line.

Brittain's "Testament of Youth" captures and expresses feelings of fear, impotence, and anger during the war years.

Using contextual language and inspiration from other texts can help create a convincing persona in your own writing.

It has been such a pleasure to look at "Testament of Youth" with you, and use it as a jumping off point in order to inspire your own letters.

And I look forward to seeing you next time.