Each student in the 2014 Year 11 class has created a fictitious teenager as part of their 1.5 Writing portfolio. Their task is to research every day life in the period from 1914 - 1918 and write letters in French to a partner in Amiens who will respond in English. The students incorporate a variety of text types such as articles, brochures and recipes in their letters so they meet the criteria for the 1.3 Achievement Standard. As part of their research, they read a number of old school magazines published between 1913 - 1918. We are lucky to have copies of St Margaret's College magazines in our archive.

Some of the girls take history where they also cover this period of time. All in all, my students love to read about teenage and school life back then, and came up with very pertinent questions about the repercussions of the war on the life of young New Zealand girls at the time (Did they have more chores to do? How many young men went to war? What were girls allowed to do at the time and did the war change their role in the house with so many male family members away? How did it feel to know that a loved one was overseas fighting?, etc.). They have written the first letters and are now waiting for their pen pals to reply.