QUESTIONS OF WAR
Connecting Students to Critical Issues
through Sunrise Over Fallujah
Presented by
Dr. April Nauman &
Dr. Durene Wheeler
Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago
OUTLINE OF OUR TALK
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Introductions & Partners (Partners receive different colored cards.)
Sunrise over Fallujah: Many Possible Pathways
Teaching Literature: Strategies vs Activities
Before Reading: Raise Interest & Prior Knowledge
During Reading
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After Reading
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Guided Listening for Comprehension
Questioning: FAQs
Cast of Characters Chart
Organize for Readers’ Theater
Extending
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Minorities & the Military
Why are We Fighting in the Middle East?
MANY POSSIBLE PATHWAYS
Sunrise
Over
Fallujah
Author
Study
Other books by
Walter Dean
Myers
Genre
studies
Other YA
books about
war
Depictions of war in
movies and books
Theme
studies
Current Events in
the Middle East:
Afghanistan & the
Taliban
Terrorists &
Freedom
Fighters in
history
How the Invasion of
Iraq was “Sold”
(Propaganda)
Islam, Christianity,
& Judaism
TEACHING LITERATURE:
STRATEGIES VS ACTIVITIES
We learn reading strategies
to read books; we don’t
read books to learn reading
strategies.
STRATEGIES (READING, COMPREHENSION)
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Strategies are cognitive operations that improve
reading engagement and comprehension. The goal is
for students to internalize, transfer, and flexibly use
these strategies. Examples are:
Predicting
 Inferring
 Making connections to text
 Determining important information
 Summarizing/synthesizing
 Visualizing
 Questioning
 Metacognitive “fix up” strategies
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ACTIVITIES (CLASSROOM/INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES)
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Activities are what we do with our students in
class to help them learn and practice the
reading strategies. For example:
 Teacher
think alouds
 Literature Circles
 Partner reading
 Reader’s Theater
Classroom/instructional activities also often include
tools, such as graphic organizers, note-taking
techniques, etc.
STRATEGIES & ACTIVITIES
FOR MYERS’ SUNRISE OVER FALLUJAH
 Strategies
 Listening
 Summarizing
 Questioning
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Activities
 Listening
Game
 Teacher Read-Aloud with Partner Turn & Talk
Summary
 FAQ sheets (also a tool)
BEFORE READING: SPARK INTEREST & PRIOR
KNOWLEDGE
What are your students likely to know about _______ (the Iraq
war)?
“Activating” vs. providing prior knowledge
 Activate
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Personal connection (Do you have a relative or friend who served
or is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan?)
Agitating question (“What would you do if another country invaded
the U.S.?” “Do you think we should still be fighting in Iraq?” “Do
you think we should have invaded Iraq in the first place?” etc.)
Photographs, videos, other visuals (Show and have students
journal their thoughts and feelings about what they see.)
Anticipation Guide
BEFORE READING: SPARK INTEREST &
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
 Provide (a.k.a., “frontload”)
 Show
documentaries and/or movies (resources are
in your folders).
 Invite a veteran or current service member to your
class to tell about his or her experience and to be
interviewed by students.
 Read aloud from newspapers, newsmagazines, or
books, pausing to explain and discuss.
 Label maps and play Internet map games.
INTEREST & PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
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Reading books such as Sunrise Over Fallujah
(i.e., narratives, fictional or biographical) can be
considered part of knowledge-building for
further learning on a specific topic (in this case,
events in the Middle East). Aesthetic reading
helps connect more students to particular
content. It also works as a motivator: the more
knowledge (and personal connection) a person
has to a subject, the more interested he or she
is in it.
GUIDED LISTENING FOR COMPREHENSION*
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Reading comprehension involves hearing the author’s
words in your head—listening to the author’s voice.
Listening well requires you to focus and quiet the
noise in your head (kids have a lot of noise in their
heads!)
The “You Said…” listening game with partner
Teacher read aloud (initial letter). Before reading:
 Tell students to practice listening well.
 Let students know that they will be turning to their
partner after the reading to summarize the letter—
i.e., tell their partner about what they heard.
*Adapted from Lisa Donahue’s Guided Listening, 2007, Pembroke.
READ ALOUD
TURN & TALK SUMMARIZING
The teacher picks a card color (randomly or
intentionally) to designate which partner talks first.
 Remind students that they’re simply telling each
other what they heard during the read aloud.
 After the first partner summarizes, the other
partner fills in any “missing” information—whatever
he/she recalls that the first partner left out.
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TURN & TALK SUMMARIZING, cont’d
Ask for one or two volunteers to summarize for
the whole class. This way, you can correct any
misinformation, and everyone hears again
what’s happening at the beginning of this
novel, which sets the stage for further reading.
 You might also have students write down their
summaries.
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QUESTIONING WITH FAQ SHEETS
Explain that, as a class, we will compile one list of
frequently asked questions per chapter to help
other students (e.g., struggling readers, younger
students, students with limited English, etc.) read
this book after this class is finished with it.
 Explain the FAQs will be exactly that—a brief list of
the most frequently asked questions.
 Explain that the questions should be ones we can
reasonably and quickly find the answers to, which
means the questions will be mostly factual and
about unknown terms and vocabulary.
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QUESTIONING WITH FAQ SHEETS, CONT’D
Review your own questions to ask the class to
decide which best fit that criteria.
 Distribute the FAQ sheet for Chapter 1 (with 2 to 3
questions and answers to “get the kids started”
and space for students to add questions).
 Partner read (one page switch-off—reader finishes
a sentence that goes onto the next page; “side
saddle style”): Pause after each long paragraph or
each few lines to write down questions you or your
partner realize you had (the partners work on one
list).
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PARTNER READ
QUESTIONING WITH FAQ SHEETS, CONT’D
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After reading the chapter, partners review their list of
questions and decide which 3 to 5 questions would be
most frequently asked by other students.
Partners then merge with another pair, and all four
students compare and discuss which questions should
be on the FAQ sheet.
Then, as a whole group, come to consensus on which 3
to 5 questions should be added to the Chapter 1 FAQ
sheet. Ideally, students then work in pairs or triads to
find the answers to their questions on the Internet.
CAST OF CHARACTERS CHART
Each pair works to create a “Cast of Characters
Chart” to keep straight the multitude of characters
introduced in Chapter 1. Characters can be placed
in a hierarchy by rank, with a phrase of description
after each name (see chart in your folder).
 Whole class then contributes to a single definitive
chart (teacher then Xeroxes and gives a copy to
each student for their Fallujah Folders).
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READER’S THEATER
Sunrise Over Fallujah screams Reader’s Theater!
 After the first or first two chapters, take the time to
stage a Reader’s Theater.
 Make sure everyone has some part in the
production. Students work in pairs or triads to
write different scenes (depending on how many
scenes you want to use), find props, create the
stage, and play the roles. (Consider having an
“understudy” for each part, though the many roles
are small. This helps avoid problems occurring
with absenteeism.)
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AFTER READING: READER’S THEATER
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After reading the entire book, ask partners to identify
and “nominate” 3 important scenes from the book, to
be enacted (which can be filmed, if you have the
equipment).
You decide which scenes will be included (enough
scenes so that all the students in your class have a
role in one scene). The scenes can involve varying
numbers of students—from two to ten. The groups are
to work cooperatively on the script, staging, and
performance. Allow students to choose their own
groups with minimal intervention from you, when
possible.
Invite other classes and teachers to the show!
EXTENDING: MINORITIES & THE MILITARY
All DoD 2007
Enlisted
Marine
Corps
Army
Navy
Male 67%
20 and
under
Male 45%
under 20
Male 56%
under 20
Male 65%
under 20
Female
65% 20
and under
Female
46% under
20
Female 60%
under 20
Female 68%
under 20
EXTENDING: MINORITIES & THE MILITARY
Air Force
Male 55%
under 20
Female
58% under
20
EXTENDING: MINORITIES & THE MILITARY
Question of Military Academies as Tools of
Recruitment
 Number of Academies
 Lack of Discipline Among Youth
 Dwindling numbers of recruits
 The Matter of CHOICE
EXTENDING:
WHY ARE WE FIGHTING IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
Timeline Activity
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Partner Picture Walk: Partners walk the timeline together
looking at and talking about the photos and pictures at each
point.
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Each partner pair receives two to three 1-page descriptions of
an event on the timeline. (Teacher can differentiate by choosing
which description pages to give which students). Partners read
the descriptions, figure out where they go on the timeline, then
go hang them there. During this activity, teacher walks around
the room to answer questions and talk with students about
what they’re reading.
NOTE!!! There is only one description per year on the timeline.
Each description goes directly below the year. Don’t just look at
the years mentioned in the descriptions—you have to match the
description to the year based on the event itself.
Time line Activity, cont’d
Partners then “present” their description pages
to the class, standing beside their pages and
telling what happened (not reading the page,
but also not formally summarizing—just talking
through it). This should go fast!
 As partners “present,” the rest of the class sits
ready to write down any bit of information that
seems interesting to them (with timeline year
and names of the “presenters”).
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EXTENDING: Researching More on Why We are
Fighting in the Middle East
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Students choose which events or countries to learn
more about and work in pairs or triads.
Each student in the pair or triad is responsible for
finding and/or reading at least one article from the
Internet on the topic chosen.
Students work in triads, pairs, or individually to create
“Ten Things Americans Need to Know About
______________” pamphlets/booklets, with one
statement per page accompanied by some graphic,
picture, or illustration. (These can be hand-made or
computer-made.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Donahue, Lisa (2000). Guided listening: A framework for using
read-aloud and other oral language experiences to build
comprehension skills and help students record, share, value,
and interpret ideas, Pembroke.
http://www.defenselink.mil/
http://www.census.gov/
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/
Quinn, Therese & Meiners, Erica (2009). Straightening Unruly
Bodies through Military Education, pp. 13-28. In Flaunt It!
Queers Organizing for Public Education and Justice. New York:
Peter Lang.