Lesson Plans

Honoring Our Veterans Through Poetry Prewriting
In this grades 6-8 lesson, students write poetry in honor of the men and women who have served in America’s armed forces.

Wartime Poetry: Working with Similes
In this lesson, students in grades 3–5 use wartime images of children to write poetry expressing the emotions they imagine those children felt. The activity can be adapted by using images of veterans.

Building Vietnam War Scavenger Hunts through Web-Based Inquiry
Using books about Vietnam, students in grades 9–12 work in small groups to adopt the perspective of members of a group involved in the war (e.g., veterans, journalists, etc.), and conduct Internet scavenger hunts to explore how that particular group was affected by the war.

Love of War in Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story”
In this lesson, high school students examine texts and view videos on camaraderie among soldiers. Afterwards, students compose a visual collage depicting their own beliefs about the relationship between love and war.

Web Links

Veterans History Project
This project, from the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, is a collection of interviews and documentary materials highlighting veterans’ experiences over much of the 20th century.

Veterans Day
This page, from the Department of Veteran Affairs, provides links to resources on the history of the holiday, photographs of past celebrations in our nation’s capital, and other media used to promote the holiday.

Veterans of Foreign Wars
This site provides information about the VFW’s programs and activities around the country. The VFW’s stated mission is to “honor the dead by helping the living.”

VA Kids
This site offers information about veterans for students in grades 6–12, along with activities and games. There is also a separate site for students in grades K–5 .

Texts

Gilmore, Barry, and Alexander Kaplan. 2007. Tim O’Brien in the Classroom. NCTE.
This book focuses on opportunities for classroom discussion and writing assignments about Vietnam-era war stories, including lessons, open-ended prompts, and student writing samples.

Aronson, Mark and Patty Campbell, eds. 2008. War is ... : Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War. Candlewick.
Students can experience detailed and gripping personal accounts of war in the form of essays, letters, memoirs, short stories, and blog entries. Hear more about this book in this Text Messages podcast.

Landau, Elaine. 2002. Veterans Day: Remembering Our War Heroes. Enslow Publishers.
This book helps students in elementary grades learn about Veterans Day in the U.S.

Henry, Heather French. 2004. Pepper’s Purple Heart: A Veterans Day Story. Cubbie Blue Publishing.
Through the eyes of a girl and her friend, children learn about our nation’s veterans and why we honor them.