8th Grade Social Studies Discusses World War I

In 8th grade Social Studies, students have been studying World War I. Recently, students were studying trench warfare and the conditions for troops in these trenches. To do so, they engaged with sections of the English translations of the journals of French infantryman Louis Barthas' that he kept in the trenches during the war. This text has a personal connection to Ms. Strauss! Her dad, historian Ed Strauss, translated these journals–from French to English–which were published in 2013 ahead of WWI's centennial. Students read, discussed, and responded to quotes from Ed Strauss' translation–Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker 1914-1918)–as a way to understand the conditions and experiences of soldiers in WWI trenches.