Using Tony Pritchard's letters in class

 

Letter from Luxembourg, February 18, 1945

For now, this page is mostly about potential.  Tony Pritchard's letters have been used in exactly one course - in a freshman seminar at Yale University, which I co-taught with the professor during the time the class was working with the letters.
 
I believe that my father's letters could be very effectively used in high school and perhaps middle school, as well as college.  I would be very interested in working with teachers to figure out how to do this.  I envision a partnership in which I would provide knowledge of the documents and to some extent of WWII, and teachers would provide knowledge of their students and the school environment.

For the first two schools I work with, I will work for free.  

Tony Pritchard's letters fit particularly well with the Common Core Curriculum. They match up very well with the Common Core emphasis on close reading of short nonfiction texts, on asking questions which promote examination of the texts, and on analysis closely based on the texts.  Since they consist of many different documents, they can be used very flexibly; students could work with one document or several, and could mix and match in many ways. 

They also match up well with the Standards of the National Council for the Social Studies  (NCSS).  Some possible topics based on NCSS standards are listed below.  They are  examples only, other possibilities certainly exist. 


NCSS Standard # 1, Culture

• Women's behavior near the battlefield illustrates the different relationships of men and women to war. 
• Many passages illustrate the impact of war on group values and behavior - 
• The importance of solidarity among troops in a unit - when it succeeds and on one occasion when it collapses
• Becoming accustomed to destruction - when troops destroy a building simply in order to help an army journalist to get some good photos. 

Standard # 4, Individual Development and Identity. -

• Tony badly wants his parents to understand what he is going through - but he doesn't want to scare the daylights out of them.  The conflict between these two runs all through the letters.   
• Tony confronts several moral challenges - from confronting his fear to a conflict between helping wounded comrades and accomplishing his mission.  

Standard # 5 - Individuals, Groups and Institutions -

• Processes of adjustment from civilian life to the military.  
• Life in an organization whose norms are often much stricter than those found elsewhere 

Standard # 10 - Civic Ideals and Practices

• Nature and limits of an officer's authority - He can an order troops to risk their lives, but it's not his business whether or how they vote.  
• Extreme inequality of sacrifice - A minority of troops served in the front lines, and they tended to be those with lower test scores and less formal education.  How does this relate to American values?

If you are at all interested, see below for my contact information. 

Contact Information 

Arnie Pritchard
19 Colony Road
New Haven, CT 06511

203-624-2520

Email Arnie


Here is the letter shown above, blown up large enough that you may actually be able to read it.