Jessica

Jessica's thoughts

Here is link to the wikipedia page about a Civil War story if you need an additional resource. Basically it's this guy is about to get killed (it's the twist ending, sorry I ruined it) but he goes through this whole dream sequence of what his life would be like without the war. My friend told me about it - could be useful if you need an activity or if we want to work it in somehow! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Occurrence_at_Owl_Creek_Bridge

//Here are some routine things the group went over in class on Monday://

--Character chart with the main characters
--The class can even determine who is "main" enough!

--Every Friday plan for discussion on the wiki topics, like "can a war ever be 'good'" or "what do the words 'honor' and 'glory' mean to you? are they the same or are they different?"
--The idea is that we can plan on doing our lessons Monday to Wednesday and then every "Friday", i.e. a filler day, we can devote to tackling important issues from the text that, perhaps, we don't want to write a lesson about. --Dr. Pace seemed very okay with us focusing on how controversial the text and the war is but a) I'm nervous about how that would look exactly in a lesson plan and b) I'm not so sure kids would know it; we might have to do a lot of teaching here or just rely on the direction of discussion to see how we can help our kids learn more, you know? ===--For every three to five days of lessons, quite honestly, we should probably plan for a similar routine of lesson types. Not because it's easier on us but because, really, kids need variation. And it's easier on us ;)=== --Perhaps think: one close text analysis (colormarking, slow reading, prose analysis, etc), something artsy, some independent thought, some writing homework, some other text to throw in there with meaning, etc. If you think of a good system or add in an activity that we think will work well for everyone, just post it!

//Here are some thoughts on introductory activities from Monday://

--We talked about the idea of maybe doing a bunch of movie clips to show the glory of war first, then more 'negative' war stuff in the unit
--Dr. Pace really said that we are okay with showing how controversial this text is. She also said that we can use this idea of breaking norms and conventions for the war story genre through O'Brien's text. --Week 1, which we don't have to do unless someone wanted to do this instead, is an introduction to the way war has been portrayed for a while - glory, guts, valor, bravery, etc. Not to say that those things aren't in our book, but to show how they are really propaganda-ized in these movies. That could help them set the foundation for the war story genre in general and the types of things to expect with war stories. --Then for 4 weeks, we come in with parts of the book and other works that really blast that out of the water, to show them that this book is one of the biggest "hey listen, war ain't that great and here's why" texts. We, essentially break down the book into quarters and we kinda do whatever we want with it. We think this might be easier to slow down the reading and really make the students //listen// to O'Brien's story. --Then week 6 will be devoted to the culminating project. Which we decided we'd figure out at the end when we know what we did. Likewise, we will develop the intro at the end (yay backward planning) to see what we want our kids to focus on.

--I told Kara and Julie about my class in 10th grade doing a "day in the trenches."
--I'm not sure how we can do this since, you know, there aren't trenches in Vietnam. But, realistically, if we can figure out a scene that works or something from the Vietnam war that we can do (like maybe doing a draft of some kind in class?) or even doing a day where there are boom, boom, boom activities that represent different wars (like trenches, the draft, fighting your neighbor for the Civil War, etc), we could get the kids moving around and having some fun with a very serious topic

--We also pretty much decided that our intro lesson would have to be a whole day and we'd do the 10-15 minutes we're told to do and end it with a Townsend "And now class you will do X" and sit down
--How can you introduce war in 10 minutes?!

--We also thought it might be good, esp if we go with conventions and expectations, to have the class generate what makes a war story on the board like Townsend's class
--We could say that we will come back to this list at the end of the unit and see what they come up with then. So have them generate a new list now that they read the book and see how it matches up to their old list. This can be really helpful in getting them to see how this book changed their perceptions of war, why that might, and what might have changed but stayed the same (there might be bravery but does the meaning of bravery change from the beginning to end?)

//Here are some activities that I think would be helpful in our unit and I really like myself!//

--Jigsaw classroom with multiple poems, text excerpts, or even specfic characters from the text.
--Would allow lots of exposure to a text and get a lot more of the text(s) covered in the classroom. Also puts the pressure / responsiblity on the students to really get into the texts we give them so they can teach others.

--Modeling his writing style with an event of their own
--This, I feel, will probably end up being part of, if not all, of our final project. Taking the elements from the unit and weaving them into your own story about some event and telling us WHY you chose to do it that way, perhaps? Just a thought.

--Bringing in something they would bring with them to war or just bringing in something they always carry with them.
--This allows them to think about themselves if they were in Tim O'Brien's position --It also could be a good way to generate some writing about the topic - if students see that their class would generate X amount of weight in trinkets, plus equipment, that they had to keep with them at all times, perhaps they would think more like Tim O'Brien or understand the humping aspect of the war

--Using film, tv show, and song
--There are so many good war movies out there. There are also so many websites devoted to those movies (I googled one on the top 10 true war stories) --We can use any variety of clips to get a lot of points across - like we can show the "shit" scene through that clip in Forrest Gump where they are told to get down but he doesn't understand why; we can show them being at home and Forrest Gump telling his story on the bench at the beginning and end to ask why the story might be framed in that way, just like O'Brien frames his story at the start with Jimmy Cross and Martha (chapter 1) or at the end (with weaving in Linda among his other friends). --Songs are SO good for telling it like it is and, like Kara has been saying in class, there are so many songs that could get students pumped up. This could be where students take your activity from Anding, Kelly, and apply it not to illustrating from the song, but finding a moment in the book that relates to the song, and then maybe drawing that? Or no drawing at all? It could be really fascinating. --I also really like this notion from the Norman chapter / story about //listening// and how that, whether we see it or not, is all throughout this book. No one takes the time to listen to war stories. And when they do, they probably don't hear what's //really// happening. This is O'Brien's way of getting it out and MAKING us listen. I think there are so many cool things you can do with this too (esp when I reread the chapter...).

--I think the idea of choosing a favorite word or sentence from this text
--I think this book is FULL of words and phrases and sentences that make the reader stop and think. It's incredible how talented O'Brien is there. Julie and I had the same thought about "humping" being used to describe walking aimless and carrying all your equipment and for what reason? We could let the class go wild with that one. I like it.

--We threw around the idea of drawing the guy from the cabin that helps Tim determine if he is going to war.
--Since he is basically a god figure, I joked that it would be hilarious to have the class put his drawing up on the wall and have him watch them throughout the unit, lol

--We can also use the Langer processes as we talk about the book to develop their understanding of how to tell a War Story
--We can say in our intro that we have already taught them about the reading processes if we want. --I only suggest this because one of the things we discussed on Monday was the idea that O'Brien forces you to step out, often. He will talk directly to you, tell you 'the truth', retell a story to point out how much he is making up, etc. There are so many moments where you forget you are reading a coherent story about the soliders just as there are many moments where you forget there is a story behind O'Brien's personal conversations with the reader. --I think there is a lot we can do with this to show students the way he develops the reading process for us while still telling a compelling story. Like our genre and convetions talk, it could reshape how we view an effective story - perhaps some believe effective stories will never directly address the audience, reveal their inconsistencies, etc. Just some food for thought!