Having settled on a framework for a digital project, my main objective now is to compile the primary sources and materials that I want the project to incorporate. I already have plenty of research on WWI Modernist literature to draw from, so the larger problem is looking into research of the war to match the writers and authors I want to include. My preliminary list of writers includes Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Eliot, Owen, Sassoon, Kafka, Tolkien, Remarque, and some others if necessary; with some exceptions like Remarque, most of the list is English literature, which I will try to complement with other perspectives where I can. The written works by these authors will count as primary sources themselves, but I want to combine them with more ‘traditional’ sources of soldiers describing war experiences themselves, especially from the same places. Hence, as I am far more familiar with the literature angle, much of my immediate research will be focused on gathering and synthesizing WWI history and sources, keeping in mind all potential connections between them that I can apply to the hypothetical lesson. It will likely be a challenge balancing both halves of this project, but thankfully I already have experience in this subject to draw from.

National WWI Museum and Memorial | Collections Database

Another immediate objective has been to decide which digital tools and images to use. For the purposes of this project, many of the images included will likely be landscape photographs of the various spaces of the conflict, coordinated with specific writers. The above example, taken from the United States WWI Museum and Memorial digital archive, depicts a collapsed German bunker in the aftermath of the brutal Somme offensive. Some of the writers included in this project, namely J. R. R. Tolkien, served in this section of the war; although his work would likely be better compared with landscape photographs of the environmental consequences of the Somme, this example can be used to examine the nature of industrial conflict alongside other literary depictions of the trenches (especially Remarque’s). I chose this one because of its clear depiction of the trench, but there are others in the collection showing specific weapons or soldiers, which will still be available should students want to focus on those things. Regardless, I intend for the students to look at these types of image sources, map them to their corresponding geographic locations, and discuss the portrayal of the war in order to compare with examples from associated writing.