John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace is set at the fictional all-boys' Devon School in New Hampshire during WWII. Knowles was a student at the Phillips Exeter Academy, and the Devon School of the novel is based on his experiences there.
A Separate Peace follows the experiences of Gene and Phineas throughout summer and winter sessions at Devon. While students at Devon, the boys of their class are struggling with the question of whether to enlist for WWII at the age of 17 or to be drafted as soon as they turned 18.
The novel has been heralded as a story of the struggle of good and evil, and the relationship between the main characters keeps the students guessing and wanting to keep reading!
When used in a Social Studies classroom, A Separate Peace gives students insight to what it was like to live in the United States during WWII. Furthermore, the novel asks students to ponder the idea of what they would do if they had to make the decision to either enlist or be drafted.
In addition to the above listed connections to the study of WWII in the Social Studies classroom, it also can be connected to the War on Terror and the Iraq War. The students in the novel often forget that a war is going on overseas, just as many of our own students forget about the war in the Middle East. Unless our students have a direct connection to the war, it doesn't seem real to them, and the same can be said for Gene, Phineas, and company.
A Separate Peace figurative language/creative writing Prezi used in an 11th grade classroom:
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