Monday 5/5/14

1. Monday 5/5/14 Please have out your Passage Journal for last night’s reading. Agenda • Pair share passage journal • “Speaking of Courage”- “Notes” DQ’s • PTSD in art & background • PTSD connections to the novel

2. Please answer the DQ’s following the directions on your paper. (10 min.) 1. Norman Bowker, in Tim's story, almost won the Silver Star--a medal for bravery--but was not quite brave enough. He left his friend Kiowa in the mud of the river bank, because the smell of the river was too disgusting for him to bear. When he returns home to America, he thinks about the Silver Star, and what it represents, and what bravery really means. Why does the medal seem pointless to Bowker? Why can’t he explain it and what happened to Kiowa to anyone?

3. 2. Why do you think O’Brien felt it was important to include “Notes” in The Things They Carried? How does it affect your impression of “Speaking of Courage”?

4. “PTSD” (2010), Unknown Soldier What do you see in this portrait? What elements create the tone of this piece? What do you think the artist is trying to tell the audience about the soldier’s experience after war?

5. What is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder? • “A type of anxiety disorder that can occur after experiencing a traumatic event involving the threat of injury or death” • “PTSD changes the body’s response to stress and affect the stress hormones and chemicals that carry information between the nerves (neurotransmiters).” (From A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia).

6. Symptoms: Three Main Categories Reliving the Event: flashbacks, night terrors Avoidance: depression, emotional “numbing,” poor memory Arousal: anger outbursts, difficulty concentrating, feeling more aware of everything, “Survivor Guilt”

7. Connecting Art Analysis to Literary Analysis

8. Coming Home from Vietnam: “‘The things is,’ he wrote, ‘there’s no place to go. Not just in this lousy little town. In general. My life, I mean. It’s almost like I got killed over in Nam … Hard to describe. That night when Kiowa got wasted, I sort of sank down into the sewage with him … Feels like I’m still in deep shit’” (156).

9. Coming Home from Vietnam “‘I’m no basket case—not even any bad dreams. And I don’t feel like anybody mistreats me or anything, except sometimes people act too nice, too polite, like they’re afraid they might ask the wrong question…. I mean, who in their right mind wants a parade? Or getting his back clapped by a bunch of patriotic idiots who don’t know jack about what is feels like to kill people or get shot at or sleep in the rain or watch your buddy go down in the mud? Who needs it? ’” (156).

10. O’Brien on Writing War Stories: “Telling stories seems a natural, inevitable process, like clearing the throat. Partly catharsis, partly communication, it was a way of grabbing people by the shirt and explaining exactly what had happened to me, how I’d allowed myself to get dragged into a wrong war, all the mistakes I’d made, all the terrible things I had seen and done” (157-58).

11. Please complete Wrap-up • If you do not finish the Wrap-up, please add it to your Hw calendar. It will be due first thing next class. • If you finish the Wrap-up, please turn it in to the basket on the back table and begin reading “In the Field”, “Good Form”, & “Field Trip”. Hw: Finish reading “In the Field”- “Field Trip” + Passage Journal, Finish PTDS Wrap-up- if needed