Letters home help understand the past

In HaSS this term, our Year 10 students have been studying the Second World War in the Pacific, as part of their wider History course, including examining the experiences of Allied and Australian soldiers who were captured by the Imperial Japanese miliary between 1941-1945.

Students from Mr Batley's classes were tasked with stepping into the perspective of an Australian prisoner of war and creating an historical artefact, by drafting, editing, aging, and staining (with tea leaves) letters home to their families as if they themselves had been captured.

Their letters included information from real historical events, including the Fall of Singapore and the Kokoda Track Campaign, as they detailed to their families the context behind their capture, and the harsh conditions that they were living in as POWs. 

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