Metzger 1

Dan Metzger

Dr. Alex Mueller

ENGL 611

Curriculum Unit Project

14 March 2013

“Exploring Literary Forms with the Literature of the Vietnam War:”

Being the Second Curriculum Unit of ENGL 3xx: American War Literature

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

In contextualizing the curriculum unit for my final project, my intention is to teach these lessons to an upper-level, post-secondary English course centered on American War Literature of the 20th and 21st Century. I envision the course as a 300-level course that would consist of a majority of English majors with the anticipated exception of non-majors interested in the topic and seeking to fulfill a humanities elective. The course seeks to explore the evolution in portrayals of and reactions to American military conflicts in literature. The conflicts studied will span from the World War II through the current conflicts in the Persian Gulf. The course will be titled “American War Literature.” The syllabus and reading list will present a variety of perspectives of the nation’s involvement war from the perspective of active participants in these conflicts (i.e. soldiers and veterans), journalists, and non-participatory citizens. The literature examined in the course will include short stories, novels, poetry, song lyrics, journalistic nonfiction, memoir, and film.

The curriculum unit I have developed is the second unit for the course, focusing on literature from the Vietnam War and an exploration of literary forms used and, in some cases, pioneered by writers who were involved in the war. This introductory statement will serve to explain my choice of texts, provide a rationale for the unit as a whole, and state the broad objectives that the unit seeks to address. Each lesson plan contains a brief list of objectives and in some cases the explanation for specific teaching methods.

Why these texts? Why these students?

Not only does the literature of the Vietnam War represent the tumultuous political atmosphere of America in the late 1960s, but the nature of the literature itself is likely to interest college-aged readers. The Vietnam War was the first American conflict where the average recruit was under 20 years old (Johannessen 122). Johannessen claims that college-aged students are particularly responsive to the literature of the war because it tends to focus on themes of the bildungsroman and the “adolescence experience” (122-3). The age of the students in the classroom will likely align with the ages of those young men they are reading about in the literature. I consider the structure of the bildungsroman and how this “genre” of the coming-of-age narrative is at the heart of most of the narratives, mainly because the “characters” fighting in the war were just on the cusp of adulthood while creating this unit.

While there are many reasons to teach the literature of the Vietnam War, this unit seeks to focus on examining the effect the war had on the human psyche in considering the retrospective nature of memory and narrative when addressing the retelling of the traumatic events from the war. I begin the unit with a selection of three stories or vignettes by Tim O’Brien, an accessible and canonical Vietnam veteran writer. The selections are “The Things They Carried,” “Speaking of Courage,” and “How to Tell a True War Story.” These texts speak to the unit’s focus on the psychological exploration of narrative, and provide a literary form (short story; metafiction) that students should find to be a comfortable starting-point for the texts of this unit.

The focus of form then shift into an exploration of bridging traditional journalistic methods with elements of literary narrative by focusing on pieces from Michael Herr’s Dispatches. There is a lesson plan in the unit that exposes students to a broadcast journalism piece by CBS News in 1967, which provides context for the journalism that sought to report the experiences of the men fighting. This is meant to aid in juxtaposing Herr’s experimental journalism, which I present in a way that asks students to consider what sort of literature Herr’s texts are, or what the different forms he draws on in forming a new hybrid form. Framing the discussion in this manner allows for students to consider the way that the Vietnam War was influential on the landscape of American literary expression.

The final text for the unit is not a print text, but a film made in the mid-1980s and released in 1987. This film is Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, which fits with the previous texts in its focus on the psychological effects war has on the young soldier in Vietnam as well as an exploration of the methods of journalism in Vietnam. The film was co-written by Michael Herr, which provides many opportunities for connection between texts. The film’s narrative splits between Marine basic training on Parris Island, North Carolina, subsequently contrasted by central character’s time in Vietnam, which is a glimpse into soldier life that has not been presented yet in this unit. The training scenes are intensified and result in the murder/suicide of one of the central characters of this first part of the film. I believe that these aspects of the film will highlight the ways in which the soldier is stripped of identity and made to think as one part of a unit, through psychological tactics, in his training before ever setting foot on foreign soil. This all hearkens back to the idea that the individual is broken of their known identity, rebuilt in the eyes of the Corps (here represented by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman), and then sent out to fight in the jungles and cities of Vietnam.

In defending film itself in a literature course, I believe that students will, having read the materials presented read thus far in the unit, not only appreciate the change in form, but will be keyed into the themes and narrative techniques that we have been discussing throughout the unit. I believe they should be able to notice elements of bildungsroman, see the importance of music with the soundtrack of the film, notice the ironic themes of brotherhood in the face of chaos and death, and see ponder how the film includes elements of the grunt, the journalist, etc. in its cast of characters.

The Big-Picture Objectives of the Unit

One the broadest level, this unit has two main objectives. The first is that the unit seeks to have students encounter and engage with a variety of literary forms, exploring how each can be used to explore the nature of narrative and dissemination of memory or experience though its literary elements.

  • Students’ exposure to multiple literary forms, which each focus on the Vietnam War, will allow them engage with what each form can offer a writer in terms of expressing ideas, recording memories or events, and establishing theme.
  • The forms focused on in this unit are:
  • fiction, or more specifically metafiction (short stories/vignettes)
  • journalism
  • “new journalism”
  • memoir
  • film
  • poetry (in the form of song lyrics)

Students’ exploration of forms will extend to consideration of the basic literary elements in Vietnam War literature, especially setting, theme, and character.

The second objective for the unit is to develop students’ critical reading and writing skills. The texts for the unit and my methods of for instruction and student interaction with these texts will encourage “…the kind [of reading] that can help us communicate with other perspectives and ideas we have never before encountered, the kind of reading that literature requires of us and most deeply rewards ” (Smith and Wilhelm 153). The in-class activities and homework assignments are all designed to instill several different skillsets in students, including, but not limited to:

  • Supporting claims with textual evidence
  • Close reading activities
  • Free-writing that works to generate original ideas and interpretations of texts[1]
  • “Low-stakes” activities and short essays that will give students experience with reading for critical analysis
  • Working with small groups (in-class) to brainstorm ideas and develop interpretations of texts

These areas of student development build into the two main projects for the unit. First, there is a formal group presentation that focuses on a scene analysis from Full Metal Jacket and requires students to work in groups to formally present their analyses and how they situate the scene within the film, the film within the unit, and the unit within the course. The second assignment is a formal essay that will allow students to use their skills of close reading, claim building, and methods of argumentation, skills that the unit encourages from its earliest lessons.

The assessment of these projects (each guided by a rubric) will provide instructional closure. For example, I will be able to gain a sense of the effectiveness of my close reading activity by focusing on students’ ability to perform close readings in their unit essays. The rubrics have been designed to signal to my students the areas I will focus my attention on during assessment. Thegoal here is that they will use the rubric to produce insightful, well-developed presentations and essays that reflect the skills of literary analysis and the thematic discussions addressed throughout the unit. I have designed the unit to assess also students both by having them provide evidence of engagement with texts outside of class and by periodically collecting in-class work. This will aid in monitoring the effectiveness of my lessons and it will give me a sense of the students’ reactions and scholarly interactions with the texts I have assigned.

Essentially, my approach to this unit is to provide the students with a series of texts related by topic, but not necessarily by form, and encourage them to notice connections, differences, variations between the texts and their relationship to the portrayal of the Vietnam War. My approach is non-prescriptive; the lesson plans call for a great deal of diligence on the students, both individually and in groups, making their interactions and experiences with the texts the driving force of instruction.

LESSON PLANS FOR CURRICULUM UNIT

Lesson 1: Physical and Psychological “Baggage” in “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien

Duration: One 50-minute class session.

Objectives:

  • Students will be introduced to the historical context that led to the beginning of the Vietnam War.
  • This lesson seeks to introduce students to some the lingo used by the soldiers and writers in Vietnam. While some of this vocabulary will be repetitious of literature encountered previously in the course, there will be a fair amount of slang and acronyms that are specific to the participants of the Vietnam War. The list of terms and slang (Artifact #1) will help students understand this new terminology. This will aid not only in their reading of this story, but in the texts for the remainder of the unit.
  • Secondly, because O’Brien’s story “The Things They Carried” deals with the psychological “things” that the soldiers carry in addition to the physical, this lesson seeks to develop in students an awareness of the psychological/social and physical setting of Vietnam War literature.

Materials:

  • “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
  • Vietnam Jargon Handout (Artifact #1 only the first two pages of the PDF)

Methodology:

Students will come to class having read “The Things They Carried” and will have been provided with the handout of military jargon (Artifact #1) in the class prior. I will have explained that this handout will serve as a useful reference for the readings in this unit.

The class will begin with a brief conversation/lecture about the beginning of the Vietnam War and a mini-biography about Tim O’Brien as a Vietnam veteran and canonical author of Vietnam War literature (10 minutes).

I will then break the students into four small groups and pose one of the following questions to each group, explaining that their objective is to come up with two ways of answering their question, both supported by textual evidence from “They Things They Carried.” I will instruct each group to choose two spokespeople to present the two answers. (These questions will also be provided as a handout, artifact not included in this project):

  • Group 1: What does Martha signify for Jimmy Cross? Explain ways that he “carries” her physically and psychologically.
  • Group 2: In the scene about the thumb that Norman Bowker carries, is there or is there not a “moral” in the situation? (I will explain to this group that they are allowed to have both answers be affirmative or negative, as long as they include textual support. I will also urge them to look outside this scene and at other places in the story to find their support.)
  • Group 3: What do the characters’ reactions to Ted Lavender’s death tell us about their attitudes toward their own danger? Describe the different ways that their jokes about the situation may be read and how the men changed after his death.
  • Group 4: The narrator refers to the group collectively (“they”) and on an individual level. What do the men all carry as opposed to what different individuals carry and what does this tell us about the individual versus collective experience of military life?

The groups will discuss these questions for 20-25 minutes. I will listen in on each group, fielding questions when necessary, and asking questions of the groups if I feel they can probe the issues deeper than they are.

After the allotted time, the class will hear from Group 1’s spokespeople, which I will open to a brief discussion to follow. This will follow in for each group. I will orient the discussion around the binary of physical and psychological “baggage” carried by the men throughout the story. This discussion will last 10-15 minutes or until the class session is over.

Homework:

  • Read “Speaking of Courage” by Tim O’Brien
  • Class will wrap with the distribution of Artifact #3 to the class, which is a list of discussion questions and instructions for a short essay due in the following class session.

______

Lesson 2: Dimensions of Setting in “Speaking of Courage” by Tim O’Brien

Duration: One 50 minute class session.

Objectives:

  • The primary objective of this lesson is for students to engage with the literary element of setting within the second O’Brien short story of the unit. The lesson is developed in a manner that challenges the students to facilitate discussion about physical, temporal, and psychological dimensions of setting[2] by examining Tim O’Brien’s “Speaking of Courage.”
  • A secondary objective for the lesson is for students to hone their skills as critical readers and writers.
  • In addition to preparing a short essay for the class session, they will share their essays with their peers in small groups, which will encourage them to move beyond a comfort zone they may be used to in which their instructor is the sole audience for their critical writing.
  • I have designed a “low-stakes” assignment that allows a student to focus on one aspect of the story with the goal of honing their ability to develop a claim and defend it with textual evidence.

Materials:

  • “Speaking of Courage” by Tim O’Brien
  • Discussion prompt handout (Artifact #3)
  • Student response essays for the short paper assignment

Methodology:

Students will come to class having read “Speaking of Courage” and preparing a short essay response about the vignette (as per the instructions/prompts on Artifact #3). As the instructions on the assignment handout state, they should bring two copies of their essay with them at the beginning of the class.

Class begins by collecting one copy of each student’s short response essay. This serves to ensure that I receive the assignment for assessment from each student and for my own reference during class. The students each hold on to the second copies of their essays to refer to during the remainder of the lesson.

Using the assignment sheet and the questions for discussion, I will poll the class as to what topics they wrote about for their responses, with the goal of breaking the class up into smaller groups according to similar topics. I anticipate some overlap in topics addressed in the responses and in case there is an uneven distribution of topics, I will have two or more groups of the same topic or ask groups who focused on similar themes to consider variations of their topics. The aim is to have groups of three-four students each. I will ask one group member to be the scribe/recorder and another to serve as the spokesperson of the group.

Once the groups are decided, the class will break up and begin by sharing their papers with each other. I will encourage groups to read their papers verbatim, but they can choose to share their thesis and a short excerpt instead or the textual evidence they used in defending their position. The scribe will write down the general argument or striking elements from each essay. Groups will be given approximately 25-30 minutes for sharing.