GALLIPOLI: INVESTIGATING THE ANZAC LEGEND

This unit has been designed to give students a comprehensive overview of the Gallipoli campaign. It challenges students to investigate the significance of Gallipoli in Australian and New Zealand society and to research the history of the campaign beyond the simplistic portrayal it often receives.

Students have the opportunity to investigate commonly held beliefs and formulate evidence based assessments of their legitimacy. The final assessments give students to opportunity to either assess the impact of the ANZAC legend in Australia and New Zealand or alternatively discuss the current commemorative practices that take place on ANZAC day.

The unit of work has been designed to be used in both Australian and New Zealand classrooms. Whilst it has been developed to respond to the Australian Curriculum for Year 9 History [The commemoration of World War I, including debates about the nature and significance of the Anzac legend (ACDSEH097)], the unit would also be appropriate when teaching Continuity and Change with the New Zealand Social Sciences curriculum.

Please note that internet access is required to complete the research activities in this unit

This unit is 100% editable-meaning that the powerpoint, activities and assessment task materials can all be adapted to suit the needs of your students! All teaching materials, worksheets and handouts have been made using powerpoint.

INCLUDED RESOURCES:

POWERPOINT

50+ slides providing an overview of:

-Causes of WWI

-Reasons Australia and New Zealand joined the war

-Maps of the battlefields

-ANZAC experience of Gallipoli

-The nature of warfare during the campaign

-History of Gallipoli commemoration

-Challenges to the ANZAC legend

-Quotes and primary sources to support information presented on slides

BOOKLET OF QUESTIONS

A 20 page booklet of questions is included to guide students through the powerpoint and to ensure that students are actively engaging with the content as it is delivered.

RESEARCH GRID ACTIVITIES

16 stimulus articles with comprehension questions + further investigation questions. Students research in depth one of the topics below to develop a deeper understanding of elements of the campaign, as well as gain greater insight into the complexities of wartime recruitment, enlistment, warfare and commemoration.

Topics include:

-Conditions in the trenches

-Prisoners of War

-History of warfare on the Gallipoli peninsula

-French presence at Gallipoli

-The environmental impact of Gallipoli tourism

-Alternative perspectives on why the battle was lost by the Allies

-Turkish commemoration and perspectives on the campaign

-Notable Australian and New Zealand ANZAC soldiers [Jacka and Malone]

-Challenging the legend of Simpson and his donkey

-Indigenous Australian ANZACs

-Maori ANZACs

-Chinese-Australian/Chinese-New Zealander ANZACs.

ASSESSMENT

The unit includes a scaffolded essay task with three alternative prompt options. The essay prompts encourage students to examine the ANZAC legend in society in order to analyse the level of commemoration taking place in modern Australian and New Zealand society.

The essay prompts have been framed so that they can apply to either Australia or New Zealand; alternatively you can edit the prompts to be either Australia or NZ specific.

Essay task includes:

-Instruction sheet

-Research & Source Analysis grid (source analysis how-to guide included)

-Essay planning sheet

-Essay draft & teacher feedback sheet

-Final essay template sheet

-Assessment rubric (includes fully editable rubric, student reflection sheet, teacher feedback section)

RESOURCE LIST

A comprehensive list of 230+ websites and news articles has been provided to support students with completing the research grid and essay tasks. The webpages are organised into:

-General resources about Gallipoli and the ANZACs

-Resources about challenges to the commonly held viewpoints surrounding the ANZAC legend

-Itemised lists for each stimulus article with 2-4 resources to support each of investigation question on the research grid task (please note: investigation questions that seek an opinion as a part of the answer do not have resources listed)

LENGTH OF UNIT

This unit is designed to take between 16-24 lessons (approx. 4-6 weeks of class time).

A ‘lesson’ is assumed to be approximately 45 minutes long.

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