Bringing the wars home

Reading the Creative Communications Remembrance Day assignments is a highlight of my year as an instructor.

Students write short stories about a Remembrance Day ceremony. Many of these include interesting and touching details, such as an elderly woman fainting at one Winnipeg service.

Each student also writes about a person who has been affected by conflict. These stories are often memorable.

Instructors encourage students to interview members of their families. Often it’s the first time a grandparent – or aunt or uncle, even a brother – has spoken about the most tumultuous periods of their lives.

Together, the student and his or her family member or friend, or perhaps someone they had not met before this assignment, build new memories.

It’s up to the students to maintain these memories because often, the people they interview are in the last years of life.

Several of the students have made these experiences public by blogging.

Here is a sample: Good work by Allison Bench, Jackie Doming, Monique Pantel and Corinne Rikkelman.