The Things They Carried

So last week I started my unit on The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien (link on Amazon).  It's an awesome book, and the kids are always really into it... so my challenge this year was to make this unit more purposeful.  To give it a real clear objective.... Right now, I've decided that it's about students understanding the real experience of soldiers, and knowing that if they are going to support a war, they need to understand what exactly it is they are supporting.

The stories deal primarily with, as the title says, the things soldiers carry, both physically, emotionally, and mentally.  It becomes quickly apparent that the intangible weights are far heavier than the tangible ones, and many soldiers come home with lasting effects of the soldier's lifestyle.  While the book is about Vietnam, I want students to see that this is not a unique experience, and we have soldiers today dealing with the very same issues as Tim O'Brien's characters.  I think for their final assessment, they are going to be asked to write a paper proving that very idea -- that the issues O'Brien are concerned with are not unique to Vietnam, but are still issues to combat veterans today.

After seeing the success of using a documentary in the forgiveness unit, I'd like to use another film for this unit.  Two I have watched are Soldiers of Conscience, which is about soldiers struggling with the question to kill or not to kill, and This is Where We Take Our Stand, a documentary by Iraq Veterans Against the War about their desire to share their experiences via the 2008 Winter Soldier hearings.  I need to really pin down the goal of showing a film, and decide where to go from there....

I also want there to be some application piece -- something the kids DO with what they learn.  That's currently my big question mark...

Anyway, that's where I am at the moment.  I hope you are all well :)

Hugs,
    Laura

Forgiveness & Restorative Justice lesson success

Hello, friends!  So I wanted to share an update on my recent unit.  I wrote a few weeks ago about my students' engagement with the topic of revenge and justice -- this got me wanted to stick with the topic and explore it further.  So, after reading a play and seeing one character consumed with revenge and another resigning to a fate he didn't deserve (and forgiving his offenders), I turned the topic to forgiveness.  We read two works by MLK -- "Loving Your Enemies," a sermon on forgiveness, and we read an excerpt from "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence."  I asked the kids to write a response to the pieces and to connect the readings to the text we were studying in class.  The kids had some really thoughtful, reflective things to say.  Some reflective thinking about conflict resolution started!

Next, we had a guest speaker come in to talk about restorative justice (http://www.c4rj.com/).  We watched a clip from the film "Burning Bridges," which is a documentary following a restorative justice process after a group of teenagers burn down a bridge in a small community in PA.  We debriefed afterwards, and students all concluded that "this can't be used with real crimes, crimes with real victims."  This was kind of where I wanted them to be.... and so we then watched the documentary "A Long Night's Journey Into Day," which documents South Africa's use of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to heal the wounds caused by apartheid.  After each segment of the film, students shared their reactions.  They were pretty inspired by people's ability to forgive others for some of the most heinous crimes imaginable.  They watched mothers and fathers of murder victims hug the person who murdered their child.  They also saw families of murder victims who did not forgive the offender, and reflected on that burden.  The film also humanized many of those who committed atrocities, which resonated with the kids as well.  They saw that these people were people, not monsters, and it was pretty powerful to watch.

So for their assessment, students had two options:  a personal narrative reflecting on an experience related to forgiveness, or write a persuasive essay arguing that restorative justice should be used in a given situation (could be current events, a school issue, American history -- anything related to a community they're a part of).  The students really got into these pieces, and wrote some beautiful work.  They cared about what they were writing about, and I really just feel good about the unit.... awesome, awesome.

I'm going to try to attach the documents from this unit in the comments box, so you can access them if you'd like.  Thanks for your continued support :)

Big hugs,
   Laura