Michael Welch

Young People in World War I Michael Welch

This READ IN THE CLASSROOM play tries to figure out why people HURT EACH OTHER, on a personal and on an international level. It presents a boy in an English private school who is the victim of terrible BULLYING, hurt so badly that he decides to hurt back in a big way. The "NARROW NATIONALISM" that the popular boys live by makes them think they are the best; this same process makes each side in World War One think they have the right to destroy anyone unlike themselves. Young People in World War I shows rich young men and women in 1914 in their sheltered lives before the war, then it shows the drastic changes the war makes in everyone by 1918. This play is a thought-provoking experience for mature students only. Michael Welch has an M. A. from the University of Virginia. He taught seventh graders at Sells Middle School in Dublin, Ohio for thirty years-during which time Dr. Ron Morris of Ball State wrote his DISSERATION about this use of drama in the classroom. To meet the needs of his seventh graders, he wrote many FAST ACTION, easy to read plays, to be read aloud in the classroom, especially in LANGUAGE ARTS class as an alternative to a novel. Some of their titles are: "The First Time Blacks and Whites Met: 1483", "A Tang Tale: Female and Male in Old China, " A Mayan Mexican Mystery" and "Joan of Arc". These plays have been used successfully with GRADES 6-12. They work especially well with GIFTED STUDENTS and with "BAD BOYS".