Book Talk
The Things They Carried

I chose this text for a book talk because I thought that this text is the perfect specimen to combine both English and Social Studies classes. In The Things They Carried, the author, Tim O’Brien describes his Vietnam experiences in multiple short stories throughout the novel. Some of the stories are true, while others are untrue but are based off true stories. However, there is no way of really knowing which stories are true or false. The book follows feelings of guilt and fear, but there is also a focus on the true experiences that soldiers faced during their time in the Vietnam war. For example, one of O’Brien’s short stories follow a fellow soldier’s feelings of anxiety and his addiction to tranquilizers. The book follows feelings of courage, anger, sadness, death, and ultimately, can help teach empathy to a group of students. 
The book also touches on O’Brien’s feelings of disappointing his family and his political views about the Vietnam War. Some of the stories touch on both sides of wanting the war and can help be a primary source of researching the protests and political riots over the Vietnam War. O’Brien explores his feelings of hate towards the war, while also knowing that he would disappoint his family if he were to defect.
O’Brien’s experiences would be a great catalysis for Juniors or Seniors in High School to learn about not only the Vietnam War and its social issues, but also the impact that the U.S. presented onto the Vietnamese people. Some of the chapters are graphic, and the description of guilt can sometimes be intense to young readers. However, this would be a great opportunity to show students what people went through during the time of the Vietnam War, and showing students that some of the soldiers were around the same age as them.

Teaching Ideas:
1.     The Red Dot Game: The Red Dot Game is a game that teaches students about communism. The game helps make clear what the “Red Scare” was and how intense and scared people were during this time. Communism was a real threat to the U.S. and the government was ready to do just about anything to keep communism from spreading. The class gets into a large group and everyone is to get a piece of paper. Some papers will be blank, and some will have a red dot. Depending on the size of the class, about 5 people will get a piece of paper with a red dot on it. The class is to determine who has a red dot, thus deciding who would be communist. In an activity like this, the class is moving around the room and pretty soon, you’ll see groups of students accusing each other and making guesses on who is communist. The end of the game is when students can reveal if they had a red dot or not.
2.     Popular music during the 60s-70s: Listening to the popular music during this era can help students understand the political issues going on during this era. This activity would consist of students reading the lyrics of certain songs written in the 1960s and early 1970s and determining what the popular culture was feeling. This activity could also lead into a debate/discussion on what the students feel about the issue. Was the Vietnam War needed to end the spread of communism? Or was the War unnecessary and cost more lives than what it was worth? Some options of songs to show are:
a.     “The Unknown Soldier”
b.     “Bring the Boys Home”
c.     “Hello Vietnam”
3.     Lesson on Empathy: Unfortunately, empathy is lacking with students today. This book would be an amazing resource to use to teach such a thing. One could use this book to hold an activity where students picture themselves in the situation of a young soldier in the Vietnam War. Personally, I would eventually like to present the option of a final project where students write fictional, creative essays by putting themselves in the shoes of a soldier like O’Brien. I would lead up to this assignment by having students write a ‘journal’ after every few chapters read. This would help students feel prepared for the final assignment.

Challenges:
1.     I might expect some backlash from parents because some of the chapters are fairly gruesome and talk about graphic events of the war. (bombs going off, people blowing up, killing women and children)
a.     I might consider Juniors and Seniors in high school to read this book because of the graphic nature of the book.
2.     I don’t think administration would have a problem with the book in larger districts, but perhaps in smaller districts. However, my teacher who taught this book did get in some trouble because she showed songs with colorful language within them.
3.     I think that students would love this book (I know my friends and I did). This was the first real time that I learned about such a thing, and the lesson was in an English class! Students love learning about the real world and exploring new things that might be a little ‘edgy.’


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning Letter This class has been a great experience, and I’ve learned a lot though discussion, versus on my own, which I think is a good experience to gain from a class that can contribute to becoming a teacher. I think that teachers should teach and collaborate with both students and other teachers through discussion. Humans are a social species, which often learn though social, movement, and ultimately discussion. I liked the book talk aspect of the class, and I found it to be very helpful to acquire not only the books assigned to the class, but other books that my peers liked. I even got to add some books to my own fantasy collection. (I got to add more books to the pile that I have started) I liked the book about human trafficking, and the discussion that it started. First off, I liked the book in general because it sounded interesting and I also think I would enjoy reading it for my own pleasure. Secondly, I think that students need to be aware of the evil in the worl...
Read more
Response to Core Standards... Before becoming involved in the classroom and the Education Program, I was not a fan of state standards. I felt as if I was a machine in a factory that was being perfected to become “prepared for the real world.” Though I thought that becoming part of the real world was important, I felt that I was only to adhere to such standards and that felt boring and cold to me. I felt like the real world isn’t made up of state standards, so why should school be made up of it? However, now that I am pretty far involved within the Education Department, I now see the necessity for such standards. They are needed to hold not only teachers accountable, but students as well. On the other hand, I do think that there needs to be an improvement in how the standards are introduced to students. Teachers need to be able to incorporate these standards into their lessons, while also keeping their students engaged. When looking over the standards on the core standards website...
Read more
My thoughts on...... Assignment Template After reading the Assignment template for California’s state standards, I noticed that they were similar to Washington’s standards. Similar to what was said in class last week, I noticed that the standards are pretty similar across many states. Furthermore, I thought that the section on Summarizing and Responding would be extremely helpful to students who struggle with noticing a difference between the two. For example, when I was younger, I struggled with summarizing in every piece of writing that I had to produce. While summarizing can sometimes be helpful, it is important for students to realize that there is indeed a difference between the two. Responding includes the student’s own ideas, and their own thoughts on whatever reading they are summarizing/responding to. I also liked the bullet points under the descriptions of each definition. Both descriptions used the method of annotating, which both summarizes and includes valid thoughts...
Read more