Board:
Unit: Literature of and about Vietnam
Essential Question: How do different voices and perspectives
in literature affect our understanding of the American war with
Vietnam?
Starting Point
(Day one)
What do you know about the American war with Vietnam? What have
you learned from your family? From your history class? Why were
the two countries at war? Who was directly involved in the conflict?
Who won the war?
(Day two)
In what ways are you similar to your mother? In what ways are
you different? How well does your mother understand the things
you value and want in life?
Word of the Day:
(Day one)
Propaganda: a distortion or extremely biased view of the
truth often propelled by the media in order to sway the public
a certain way
(day two)
Venom-poison
Homework:
(Day one)-Respond to the multiple choice questions for task three
(Day two)Write the Task three essay. Follow the guidelines I gave
you and time yourself. The essay should take you approximately
forty-five minutes to write (this is the time you should expect
to allot to this essay on the regents as well.)
Activities and Procedures:
1. Journal Writing-Responding to the "Starting Point":
Students will spend about ten minutes brainstorming about their
knowledge of/associations with the American war with Vietnam and
the people involved in/affected by the conflict.
2. Brief Discussion of "Starting Point":
Students will then share their responses with the class…we
will create a chart on the board entitled "Vietnam: Fact,
Fiction, Perspective" and try to slot the information/ideas
each student shares into one of the categories.
3. Connection to Propaganda and Perspective:
Once we have completed the chart, we will turn our attention to
the "Word of the Day," Propaganda, and we will discuss
what we know about American bias and perspective during war.
Questions to bring up include:
4. Brief Introduction to Unit and Today's Activity with
Task Three:
I will then explain to students that we are about to begin a unit
on literature from and about Vietnam and that, throughout our
unit, we will be focusing on elements of perspective and
voice in literature. I will introduce Task Three and pass
out the sample Task that they will be working on. We gill read
through the directions, Task, and Guidelines together
5. Reading Through the Excerpts:
As a class, we will read through the excerpts from Catfish and
Mandela and When Heaven and Earth Change Places. Students will
discuss the excerpts in terms of the task and will then finish
the multiple-choice questions for homework.
(Day Two)
6. Discuss Starting Talk:
Compare student comments about their relationships with their
mother's to the subtext of the writers in the excerpts from Catfish
and Mandela and When Heaven and Earth Changed Places.
7. Review Task Three Again and Share the Overhead:
"Helpful Steps to Take when Writing Task Three" I will
review the steps with students and talk through how they will
apply each step to writing their essay.
8. Writing Essays:
Follow the steps from the overhead, students will then begin outlining
and write their essays for homework.
Link to Lesson 2
