Guilty or not? With this activity, students will analyze primary and secondary source materials and take a position on whether they believe Earl Mountbatten’s version of the Dieppe Raid, or those of historians. Students will then share their news story and decide if Mountbatten is guilty or not for the Canadian tragedy at Dieppe!
This activity was first designed to accompany our exhibition Courage in Chaos: the Dieppe Story. The exhibition is also available for free to your school by completing our reservation form.
Activity content
The activity is divided into two parts. In the first part, found in the student guide, students will read and analyze a series of short texts related to Louis Mountbatten’s role in organizing the Dieppe raid: newspaper articles from the time and texts written by historians. Then, in the second part, students will be asked to decide who is guilty for the tragedy by creating either a real or fake newspaper article. Afterwards, the class will discuss whether or not the Earl is responsible for the disaster in Dieppe.
The teacher’s guide describes the educational objectives of the activity and provides the necessary corrections.
Activity objectives
The goal of these activities is to allow secondary cycle two students to have a greater understanding of World War II and the Canadian Army’s first large-scale engagement in Europe: the fatal Dieppe Raid, described as one of Canada’s darkest military chapters. Students will also learn to appreciate the contributions of Canadian Armed Forces personnel from Quebec.
These activities were created as educational tools to complement the Quebec Education Program of secondary 4 History and secondary 5 History of the 20th and Contemporary World courses. In addition, these activities can also be used as language tools in the following courses: Francais langue maternelle (in secondary 3, 4 and 5), Français, secondary language, English, secondary language (in secondary 3, 4 and 5) and English Language Arts.
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