Second Semester Final

Your second semester final consists of two parts.
Part I
Part 1 is a portfolio of your previous work, with an annotated table of contents.  In class today, we discussed the assignment and showed you samples as a reference.  Here are the documents you will need:

• Second Semester Final - Part 1
• Sample annotations
• Second Semester Final - Part 1 - Table of Contents

Class time today was dedicated to work on this part of the final, using the table of contents and your note cards from yesterday as a guide.
We also assigned Part 2.

Part 2
Part 2 is a personal reflective essay that we discussed today in class. There is a sample for a reference below.

• Second Semester Final-Part 2
• Sample Part 2 Essays

The Beginning of the End - Starting the Second Semester Final

Today we started work on our last unit together - the second semester final.

We started by asking you to complete this activity - the "Brain Wave" (click for a copy).  You filled this out by identifying the moments during the year when your thinking was most engaged - when you were doing some of your best thinking, when you were most curious, when you did some of your best writing - as well as moments when you were least engaged.  In a journal response you reflected on one from each of these categories.

Next we listened to "What's Goin' On" by Marvin Gaye (click for the lyrics - you can find the song on our American Studies playlist. Our discussion of the song asked you to find connections between those lyrics and other units from the year.

After that, we read a speech from Dr. King, "A Time to Break the Silence" (click for a copy). We focused on the section where he quotes Langston Hughes, and bridges from being a person who focuses on civil rights to one who is actively questioning the Vietnam war and encouraging others to do the same.

Here is a link to the homework for the weekend. You MUST come to class with these note cards for use on Monday.

• Start this process by re-reading your journals, highlighting interesting things you wrote. Then, once you've found 15 great lines from each semester, copy them down onto note cards (as in the instructions).
• After you've created the notecards of your own writing, you'll work on the notecards from other voices from the year (#2 in the instructions for the homework). All 60 notecards are due in class on Monday. These are a significant part of the final which you must have ready to go at the start of class. They will not be useful if you do not have them on time.

The Catcher in the Rye

Today in class we discussed The Catcher in the Rye by focusing on several key ideas and themes. The notes from those conversations can be found HERE.  Your assignment for Friday is to write a "personal essay" about your experience reading the book.
Personal Essay for Catcher
The essay is due to be submitted to turnitin.com by the start of class on Friday, May 29.

End of the Vietnam War

In class, Mr. Kramer presented a lecture on the end of the war and we discussed its legacy. You can see the lecture slides here
Then we heard a speaker, Jon Schaefer, share his experiences of what it was like to be in war. His presentation can be found below.
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Jon Schaefer Presentation
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Here is Mr. Schaefer's list of"Considerations Before Going to War".

Here are the pictures that Mr. Schaefer used in his presentation.

Vietnam Continued

On Friday in class, we discussed the massacre at My Lai.  We responded to clips from the documentary Remember My Lai , a 60 minutes story called Back to My Lai, and multiple perspectives from a variety of voices that you can find here.
Today in class we heard Mr. Rigler and Mr. Kramer read Chapter 7, How to Tell a True War Story aloud.  We then considered questions of truth in regard to what we've been learning and thinking about the novel. Here are some notes from that discussion. To add to our discussion, here are two articles based on interviews with Tim O'Brien where he addresses whether his novel is "true" or not.  PBS Interview, NY Times Interview.
Your homework for tonight is posted in the calendar.

Dear America

Today in class we watched the film Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam. 
We also assigned the project that will be the final assessment for this unit.
Be sure to check the calendar for the link to the homework for Friday.
 

The Draft, Tet, and Protest

On Monday in class, we all received draft notices and reflected on what it might mean to be drafted into war. We followed that by listening to Bruce Springsteen tell the story of what happened when he received his draft induction notice. Then, after hearing Mr. Rigler read Chapter 4 of The Things They Carried (On the Rainy River) we talked about the meaning of courage and the choices and decisions that young men had to make about whether to go to war.
Today in class we got into groups and began by learning about the Tet Offensive. Then, after each member of the group read and shared an individual perspective on the war, groups made conclusions about what story a movie about Tet might tell and then created movie posters that expressed those ideas.  Here is a link to the documents we used to learn about Tet.
During the 2nd half of class, we learned more about the protest movements against the draft and the war in Vietnam by completing the Protest Webquest that you can find in your American Studies Hist/Lit folder.  (There is a copy here as well).