Building Background Knowledge: The Impending Fall of Saigon

Sharing Annotations of “Doc-Lap at Last” and Review Learning Targets Get into your 1-4 groups Please get out your “The Vietnam Wars” article. turn and talk with a partner to share the annotations you made on each paragraph of Section 5, “Doc-Lap at Last.”

Today’s objective I can determine the central idea of the section ‘Doc-Lap at Last’ in the informational text “The Vietnam Wars.”

Just so you know Section 5 is the most relevant to understanding what Ha and her family are experiencing. Hence, you are focusing on this section for two lessons.

Reading for Key Details: “Three Threes in a Row” (20 minutes) Focus on the last section of the article, “Doc-Lap at Last,” Briefly reread again, underlining key details that help you understand the central idea.

Next… Three threes in a row directions: Part 1 (10 minutes): 1. Your group answers just the three questions on your row. 2. Take 10 minutes as a group to read your three questions, reread the text, and jot your answers.

Three threes in a row Part 2 (10 minutes): 3. Then you will walk around the room to talk with students from other groups. Bring your notes and text with you! 4. Ask each person to explain one and only one answer. 5. Listen to the other students’ explanation and then summarize that answer in your own box. 6. Record the name of the student who shared the information on the line in the question box. 7. Repeat, moving on to another student for an answer to another question. (Ask a different person for each answer so you interact with six other students total.)

Come back together What is the central idea Section 5? What are the potential implications of this information on Ha’s story?” (What might this mean for Ha and her family?)

Determining the Central Ideas of “Doc-Lap at Last” Please take a look at the handout “The Vietnam Wars” Questions and Notes, Section 5: “Doc-Lap at Last.” take 10 minutes to do the following: 1. Make a partner at your table. 2. With your partner, reread section of the text with these questions (the handout questions) in mind and answer the questions.

Returning to Brother Quang’s Quote Please look once again at the quote by Quang: “One cannot justify war unless each side flaunts its own blind conviction.”

Quick turn and talk After reading this informational text, what new thinking do you have about what Brother Quang meant? What evidence does the text give for both sides of the conflict?

Here’s what I think… In war, each side believes it is right. For example, the text says, “But the North refused to surrender” and “in the South, Communist rebels…. laid mines and booby traps.” The distinction between historical fiction and informational text can be seen in the news that “Saigon is gone”. This is news no one in Ha’s community wanted to hear. But people on each side of the conflict had different deeply held beliefs, or convictions.

Homework Note Catcher (on the back of your 3 threes in a row handout) QuickWrite 5: How is Ha’s mother being impacted by the war? Use specific evidence from the text to write a paragraph to answer this question.