Working lives: Rosie the Riveter

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Working lives mini-series, episode 103) is a short documentary about the "We Can Do It!" poster. During the Second World War, millions of American men left to fight, and millions of women started working, many of them in factories that built planes, ships and weapons; some of them were riveters. The artist J. Howard Miller made the poster in 1943 for the company Westinghouse, and it was put up inside its factories for only about two weeks. Found again in the early 1980s, it was called Rosie the Riveter, after a popular song from the war, and became a symbol of strong women at work. In 2016, a researcher showed that a 1942 newspaper photo was of a young factory worker, Naomi Parker, probably the model for the poster. The episode ends by looking closer at the poster: the scarf, the rolled-up sleeve and the work badge. The narration is in the past simple, with some passive forms (It was put up inside its factories, Then it was forgotten) and a relative clause; no grammar point is taught. It is a listening comprehension episode: learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 8 on facts and 2 on vocabulary (rivet and riveter).

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three pictures (a photo of two women riveters at work in 1943, the poster, a drawing of Naomi Parker at a lathe), the key words and the 10 questions; a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key come with them. The text ends with an open question (Why do you think this poster became so famous forty years later?). Learners should know the past simple of common verbs and be able to read dates and large numbers. The script explains its new words as it goes (rivet, riveter).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c4-school-and-society ("École et société") and c4-encountering-others ("Rencontre avec l'autre"), Cycle 4 (3e). The episode targets CEFR level B1-.