1. Thursday, April 7, 2011 Good morning, English 11! Good morning! Please clear off your desks except for a pencil or pen, your book, and your character log.

2. The Things They Carried So how much weight were the men carrying? Article on Minnesota National Guard: “Soldiers Assess Health Concerns”

3. The Things They Carried How did the first chapter make you feel? (Tired? Bored? Irritated?) WHY did the author spend so much time describing everything the men carried? What were some of the INTANGIBLE items the men carried? (Ex: Lt. Cross carried the responsibility for his men’s lives and his love for Martha.) Could there be a symbolic reason (beyond the importance of what they carried)?

4. The Things They Carried Now that you are getting more mature, you should stop thinking of books only in terms of “I like it” or I hate it”. How about considering Why the author wrote it (Purpose) and Why he wrote it in the manner he did (Style)?

5. The Things They Carried Look at this handout with me – Eight Critical Lenses through Which Readers Can View Texts. You want to move past the Reader Response Lens and consider books from other viewpoints (Historical Lens, Gender Lens, New Criticism Lens, etc.).

6. The Things They Carried Which lens does this passage reflect? They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment. – p. 21

7. The Things They Carried Which lens is reflected in these passages? …it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost. They marched for the sake of the march. They had no sense of strategy or mission. – p. 15

8. The Things They Carried Lesson 1 – Alphabet Soup – find as many of these as you can. Example: Psy ops Leaflets – military operations usually aimed at influencing the enemy's state of mind through non-combative means (as distribution of leaflets) -- Merriam Webster Bouncing Betty Willie Peter (White Phosphorous)

9. The Things They Carried Read Chapters 2 & 3, pp. 27 - 38