A city girl joins the Women's Land Army in 1917 and meets a cow; write the farmer's report on her first milking.Fact: Britain's Women's Land Army was created in 1917 and in time took on 23,000 workers.
A telegraph operator takes down the news soon after five in the morning on November 11, 1918, and has six hours to wait; write his six hours.Fact: the armistice was agreed at 5 a.m. Paris time on November 11, 1918, and came into force at 11 a.m.
A pigeon handler writes home about the bird he trusts most; write the letter without once saying where he is.Fact: when a pigeon landed, wires in the coop rang a bell, and a soldier took the message from its canister.
A Belgian customs officer opens a quiet border post on the morning of August 4, 1914; write the hour before the road fills.Fact: early on August 4, 1914, German forces invaded Belgium; the United Kingdom then entered the war.
A boy of twelve is handed the reins of the plow horse in the fall of 1914; write his first furrow.Fact: many soldiers had been farmers and had to be replaced on the land by old men, boys and women.
A farmhand in Austria-Hungary brings in the harvest in July 1914 while nobody will say what comes next; write the last evening of the cutting.Fact: the army's chief of staff wanted the summer harvest in, so the earliest date for declaring war was July 25.
A French pigeon keeper is told in 1914 that his loft is going to war on a wagon; write his goodbye to the birds.Fact: in 1914, at the First Battle of the Marne, the French army advanced 72 pigeon lofts with the troops.
A line of office workers from London's financial district waits at a recruiting table in late August 1914; write the line as the tea seller working it.Fact: sixteen hundred men enlisted in one London battalion within a week in late August 1914.
A newspaper seller in Vienna hears on June 28, 1914, that the heir to the throne has been killed in Sarajevo; write what his customers say, and how soon they go back to the weather.Fact: the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.
A postal sorter leaves London for France in August 1914 with the army's mail service; write his first letter home about letters.Fact: the army post office's advance parties left for France on August 11, 1914; it took mail for home from August 15.
A railroad timetable clerk in Russia learns on July 30, 1914, that every train now belongs to the army; write his night at the desk.Fact: Russia ordered general mobilization in support of Serbia on July 30, 1914.
A small English town decides in September 1914 to raise a battalion of its own; write the meeting in the town hall as the mayor's daughter saw it.Fact: by the end of September 1914 more than fifty towns had formed pals battalions.
A telegraph boy carries one message across a capital city on July 28, 1914; write his ride, and the faces he sees when he looks back.Fact: Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914.
For three weeks of July 1914 nothing seems to happen; write a seaside hotel keeper's diary for the middle week.Fact: Austria-Hungary did not deliver its ultimatum to Serbia until July 23, some three weeks after the assassination.
Four friends from one office in Liverpool sign up together in the last days of August 1914; write the walk to the recruiting hall as the one who is not sure.Fact: pals battalions promised men who enlisted together that they would serve beside friends and colleagues.
A letter from the front, a letter to it 12
A child writes to her father at the front by herself for the first time; write her letter, mistakes and all, and the one he sends back.First line: Dear Papa, I am writing this without help, so the spelling is mine.
A German soldier who once worked as a waiter in London writes to his old landlady about Christmas Day, 1914; write his letter.Fact: many German soldiers had lived in England, and some asked British soldiers for news of the football leagues.
A grocer's wife in April 1918 has less to put in her son's parcel than she did the year before; write her apology and his reply.Fact: parcels to the troops dropped to 400,000 by April 1918, when food at home was rationed.
A mother packs a parcel for France in April 1917; write the note she tucks inside the socks.Fact: parcels sent to British troops overseas reached a peak of over 1 million in April 1917.
A pigeon handler writes home about the bird he trusts most; write the letter without once saying where he is.Fact: when a pigeon landed, wires in the coop rang a bell, and a soldier took the message from its canister.
A sister writes to the front to ask if the newspaper story of a Christmas truce is true; write her letter and her brother's careful answer.Fact: roughly 100,000 British and German troops took part in the unofficial truces of Christmas 1914.
A soldier in France has time only for a field service postcard; write the letter he would have sent if he had been given an hour.Fact: the Field Service Post Card, Army Form A2042, was used in the First World War.
A soldier mails his sister a coat button swapped with a stranger on Christmas Day, 1914; write the note that goes with it.Fact: at the truce small gifts were exchanged: food, tobacco, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats.
A soldier writes home in October 1914 that the mail now takes four days instead of ten; write the rest of his letter.Fact: a daily mail ship from Southampton cut the time from Britain to a soldier in the front line from ten days to four.
A soldier writes home on December 26, 1914, about candles on the far trench and a carol sung back; write the letter, and the one thing he leaves out.Fact: at Christmas 1914 German soldiers put candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees and sang carols.
A sorter in a great wooden hall in a London park handles letters for soldiers she will never meet; write the envelope she cannot stop thinking about.Fact: late in 1916 the army's Home Postal Depot moved to a wooden building of 200,000 square feet in Regent's Park.
A woman of the auxiliary corps sorts mail at a base post office in France in 1917; write her letter to the post office colleagues she left behind.Fact: from May 1917 members of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps were employed at the base army post offices.
At home 12
A British shopkeeper learns the new ration rules in the winter of 1917 to 1918; write the first Saturday of rationing from behind the counter.Fact: Britain brought in compulsory rationing in stages between December 1917 and February 1918.
A city girl joins the Women's Land Army in 1917 and meets a cow; write the farmer's report on her first milking.Fact: Britain's Women's Land Army was created in 1917 and in time took on 23,000 workers.
A class digs up the school lawn for potatoes in the spring of 1917; write the day as the caretaker who kept that lawn for twenty years.Fact: a United States School Garden Army was launched to support the war garden campaign begun in March 1917.
A German family eats turnips again in the winter of 1916; write the children's game of saying what tonight's turnip tastes like.Fact: Germany's winter of 1916 to 1917 was called the turnip winter; turnips stood in for scarce potatoes and meat.
A munitions worker of 1917 shares her bed with a woman on the opposite shift whom she has never met; write the notes they leave each other.Fact: at one factory the women worked 12-hour shifts and shared a bed with someone on the opposite shift.
A teacher lets the class move pins on a wall map of Europe every Monday of the war; write the Monday she takes the map down.Angle: she does not explain. Write what the children decide the reason is.
A village postmistress in wartime can tell good news from bad by the handwriting on the envelope; write her morning round.Angle: she knocks at some doors and only slips the letter under others. Say how she decides.
A whole country moves its clocks forward one night in the spring of 1916; write the next morning in a village with one church clock and one stubborn sexton.Fact: the German and Austro-Hungarian empires began daylight saving time on April 30, 1916, the first nations to do so.
A woman who was a housemaid in 1914 starts work at a shell factory; write her first payday.Fact: some women went into munitions work for better pay and fewer hours than in domestic service.
An American family decides in 1917 whether to put its savings into a war bond; write the vote at the kitchen table.Fact: the first Liberty Loan of 1917 raised $2 billion, with 5.5 million people buying bonds.
An American family keeps a meatless Monday and a wheatless Wednesday; write Wednesday's supper as the cook explains it to the youngest.Fact: the US Food Administration, set up on August 10, 1917, relied on patriotic appeals and voluntary compliance.
By the summer of 1917 most of the British army's shells are made by women; write a foreman's grudging report on his new workers.Fact: by June 1917 roughly 80 percent of the British army's weapons and ammunition was being made by women.
The day the guns stopped 12
A baby is born at eleven in the morning on November 11, 1918; write the midwife's account, and the name the family argues over.Angle: one grandmother wants a name for peace, the other the name of someone who is not coming home.
A bell ringer in Paris climbs the tower stairs on the morning of November 11, 1918; write the climb and the first pull on the rope.Fact: at the first shot fired from the Eiffel Tower, flags were displayed and bells around Paris rang.
A German engine driver is told in November 1918 that his locomotive is one of thousands to be handed over; write his last run in it.Fact: the armistice terms required Germany to hand over 5,000 railway locomotives and 150,000 railway cars.
A gun crew fires for the last time a little before eleven on November 11, 1918, and then has nothing to do; write the first quiet half hour as its youngest member.Fact: a battery of US Navy railway guns fired its last shot at 10:57:30 a.m. on November 11, 1918.
A railroad signalman in a French forest watches a train stand on a siding for three days in November 1918; write what he guesses is going on inside.Fact: the armistice was signed in a railroad car in the Forest of Compiègne after three days of negotiations.
A ship's radio operator in mid-ocean picks up the news on November 11, 1918; write how it travels from his headphones to the engine room.Fact: the armistice ended fighting on land, at sea, and in the air between the Allies and Germany.
A soldier learns in December 1918 that the armistice has been extended and he is not going home yet; write his letter explaining it to his children.Fact: the armistice was extended three times while negotiations continued on a peace treaty.
A teacher is called out of class at eleven on November 11, 1918, and comes back unable to speak for a moment; write the lesson that follows.Angle: she tries to go on with arithmetic. Write the question a child asks instead.
A telegraph operator takes down the news soon after five in the morning on November 11, 1918, and has six hours to wait; write his six hours.Fact: the armistice was agreed at 5 a.m. Paris time on November 11, 1918, and came into force at 11 a.m.
A village near the old front line waits in November 1918 to see what the departing army leaves standing; write the week as the miller.Fact: the terms said roads, railways, canals and bridges, and everything needed for agriculture, were to be left intact.
At eleven o'clock on November 11, 1918, the soldiers across the way climb out, bow and walk off, and there is nothing to celebrate with but biscuits; write the meal.Fact: a British corporal reported that the Germans bowed and left, and there was nothing to celebrate with but biscuits.
It is eleven in Paris and noon in Berlin on November 11, 1918; write that one minute in two kitchens.Fact: the armistice took effect at 11 a.m. Paris time, which was noon Berlin time.
A hundred years on 12
A battalion's handwritten war diary of 1914 is put online a century later, and a family reads the page for the day their relative arrived; write what the page says and does not say.Fact: on January 14, 2014, Britain's National Archives released a first batch of digitized army war diaries.
A bundle of letters tied with string turns up in an attic a hundred years after the First World War; write the first one the finder opens.Angle: it is not about the war at all. It is about a dog, a debt, or a girl called Elsie.
A family in 1917 receives a photograph of a grave in France; write who is allowed to hold it first, and where it is kept afterward.Fact: by 1917, 17,000 photographs of graves had been sent to relatives who asked for them.
A great-grandchild finds a bronze disk the size of a saucer at the back of a drawer, with a name on it; write the afternoon of finding out whose it was.Fact: 1,355,000 bronze plaques, about 120 mm across, were issued to the next of kin of those killed.
A town meeting of 1920 argues over its war memorial: a stone cross or a clock tower people can use; write the speech that settles it.Fact: some memorials were made to be useful: libraries, small hospitals, parks, clock towers or bowling greens.
A town planted a tree for each of its soldiers of the First World War along one road; write a walk down it a hundred years later, tree by tree.Fact: Australia created the Avenue of Honour: lines of trees, with memorial plaques, along a road.
A village has no memorial to the First World War because everyone who left came back; write how it tells its story instead.Fact: researchers have identified 52 parishes in England and Wales from which all who served came home.
A woman pins a silk poppy to her coat in November 1918 and hands out twenty-five more; write her answer to the first person who asks what it is for.Fact: at a conference in November 1918 a volunteer wore a silk poppy and gave twenty-five more to those attending.
A woman waits in a London crowd on November 11, 1920, to see a soldier with no name carried past; write who she decides he is.Fact: an unidentified soldier was buried at Westminster Abbey on November 11, 1920, in soil from the battlefields.
Choose one name from a village memorial to the First World War and write the morning he left, as the neighbor who waved.Fact: huge numbers of war memorials were built in the 1920s and 1930s, around 176,000 of them in France alone.
Every headstone in a First World War cemetery is the same, whatever the rank; write a gardener's morning there, a hundred years on.Fact: the war graves commission, chartered on May 21, 1917, commemorates the dead uniformly, whatever their rank.
On August 4, 2014, a Canadian town marks a hundred years since the First World War began; write the evening as a great-granddaughter carrying a photograph.Fact: Canada held national commemorations on August 4, 2014, and again on November 11, 2018.
How it works
These writing prompts on World War I stay with the mail and with home: a telegraph boy on July 28, 1914, a mother packing a parcel, a bell ringer in Paris. No battle is described and no general is named.
Read the full guide
Start with the mail
One group of twelve is the mail, to the front and back. Once a daily mail ship ran from Southampton, a letter from Britain reached a soldier in the front line in four days where it had taken ten. Write what is still true four days later.
From June 1914 to the centenary
The list has five parts: the summer of 1914, the letters, life at home, November 11, 1918, and the memory of it, down to the commemorations of 2014 and 2018. Fifty-four prompts carry a fact.
A letter is written to one person. Decide who, and what they must not be worried by.
For a home prompt, put the war in the room without naming it: an empty chair, a parcel half packed.
Questions and answers
What are good World War 1 writing prompts for a history class?
Ones told from the edge of the event. A postal sorter leaves London for France in August 1914 with the army's mail. A German engine driver learns that his locomotive is one of 5,000 to be handed over under the armistice.
Are there writing prompts about the Christmas truce?
Four, all of them letters. Roughly 100,000 British and German troops took part in the unofficial truces of Christmas 1914: candles on the trenches, carols, and small gifts such as buttons and hats exchanged in no man's land.
When did World War 1 start and end?
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, and the armistice with Germany came into force at 11 a.m. Paris time on November 11, 1918. The prompts open a month earlier, on June 28, 1914.
Is there a prompt about the home front in World War 1?
Twelve: munitions work, the Women's Land Army, a school lawn dug up for potatoes, a wheatless Wednesday, Germany's turnip winter of 1916 to 1917, and the spring night in 1916 when two empires first moved their clocks forward.