Essential Question:
Days 1-5 - PLAN 1
Days 6-7 - PLAN 2
Day 8 - PLAN 3
Day 9 - PLAN 4
Day 10 - SEED 1
Day 12 - SEED 2
Days 13-14 - SEED 3
Days 16-18 - PLAN 5
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CCSS Standards for this Unit
Monitoring Templates
Unit Overview
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Lesson seeds are ideas that can be used to build a lesson aligned to the CCSS. Lesson seeds are not meant to be all-inclusive, nor are they substitutes for instruction. When developing lessons from these seeds, teachers must consider the needs of all learners. It is also important to build checkpoints into the lessons where appropriate formative assessment will inform a teachers instructional pacing and delivery.
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.” ~Richard Nixon “A true war story is never moral.” ~Tim O’Brien The multi-faceted nature of regional conflict lends itself to a study of multiple perspectives in this unit Faces of War. Students are first introduced to the history, politics, and rhetoric of the Vietnam War through landmark speeches by politicians, social movement leaders, and scholars of the time period. Through a gradual release model, students first conduct a teacher-led close read of Ho Chi Minh’s speech in order to write an explanatory essay, and then work in groups to analyze the rhetoric of another contemporary thinker. At the end of Lesson Plan 1, they present their findings to the class. In Lesson Plan 2, students examine and apply the Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory on the Stages of Moral Reasoning to the fictional Tim O’Brien’s decision to join the war. Lesson Plan 3 explores the difference between “story truth” and “happening truth” in order to identify O’Brien’s writing as meta-fiction. Next, students will examine informational text and listen to audio recordings by soldiers about the Vietnam War from the Library of Congress and engage in a collaborative discussion to examine the theme of sacrifice and brotherhood in war. Lesson Seed 1 continues the informational text study with a comparison of chapter 9 to the memoir of Dant Thuy Tram, a Vietnamese Medic who worked at a camp for the Viet Cong. For chapter 12-13, students will write an in class essay analyzing how the themes of guilt and responsibility interact and develop over the course of the text. These themes transform the characters not only during the war, but also after their return home. Lesson Seed 3 explores the impact of PTSD on soldiers as they transition to civilian life. The unit concludes with a Socratic Seminar in Lesson Plan 5 as students independently prepare to synthesis and extend the essential question and themes of the novel. Routine writings are listed throughout to build students’ capacity for explanatory essay construction.
TEXT MODELS FOR LESSONS AND LESSON SEEDS Landmark Speeches: Ho Chi Minh’s Speech JFK L. B. Johnson– “Peace without Conquest” Martin Luther King “Beyond Vietnam” L.B. Johnson’s Speech (Excerpts) Richard Nixon Landmark Speeches on the Vietnam War Final Words: Cronkite's Vietnam Commentary Theorists: Lawrence Kohlberg Theory Meta-fiction Personal Memoirs: Library of Congress Website on Brotherhood The Soldier: A History of Courage, Sacrifice, and Brotherhood by Darren Moore (For longer informational text excerpts from the war) Tram, Dang Thuy. Last Night I Dream of Peace The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram. Trans. Andrew X. Pham. Introduction. Frances FitzGerald. New York: Harmony Books, 2007. Print. Timeline: Battlefield Vietnam-timeline PTSD: PTSD Website Mayo Clinic PTSD Website Veterans of PTSD PBS NOW 26 minutes video on PTSD Additional Resources: American Declaration of Independence
Interdisciplinary Connections Additional Resources
