The Things They Carried....The Things They Cannot Say

I am a 100% volunteer for The Fight Continues.   So, somehow I have to pay my bills...that would be as a public education high school teacher.   People ask what I teach and I respond "life" or "reality 101."   Usually, their response is "No, really what do you teach?"  Then I go into the fact that I have been teaching Special Education for the past 22 years.  I have taught in both rural and suburban public schools.  I have taught students that have been identified as having an educational disability ... everything from down's syndrome, mentally handicapped, behavior disordered / emotional disturbance, specific learning disability, other health impaired, autism, and traumatic brain injury.   But teaching teenagers is really not as cut and dry as giving them an educational identification.   They are curious about all the things that adults are.   They love a good story ... whether you are telling them the story or they are reading it.  

I have been prepping my students to read The Things That They Carried by Tim O'Brien.  I have been using supplemental materials from our Global War on Terrorism Veterans and from Kevin Sites' book The Things They Cannot Say.  I have pulled all sorts of resources from the Internet from other teachers that have taught The Things That They Carried and have found that the teachers are overwhelmingly focusing on the tangible things that the soldiers carried.  While yes, these have a huge importance, I am taking a different slant and asking my students to identify the not so tangible things that the soldiers are carrying with them.   I am teaching them terms that they do not know or understand, like PTSD and TBI.  I have showed them the video of LCpl James Sperry on the Kevin Sites YouTube channel being readied for transport after his injury in the streets of Fallujah (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7hzC1vEBxU).  I have TPCASTT with them the poetic poem written by Eric Calley (http://the-fight-continues.com/?s=hell+between+the+ears).   TPCASTT?  It is an acronym for "Title, Paraphrase, Connotation, Shift, Title, Theme."   Where the person reading the poem actually predicts what it is about or means and then breaking it down as they read through it.  I then had them read the chapter from Kevin's book titled "Dogs of War."  The chapter is about a young man, Specialist Joe Caley, that is drafted into the Vietnam War.  He doesn't fit into the Army's MOS system and found himself working as a point scout with the 25th Infantry Division's Platoon Scout Dogs.  The chapter is part about the relationship between Spc. Caley and his dog, Baron, and then part about the things that he carries with him.   Spc. Caley carries with him memories ... memories of killing.

If you are a teacher, please feel free to utilize the above and what I will be posting in regards to the lessons we will be learning as we read "The Things They Carried."