Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day One
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 1: Introduction to The Things They Carried
Lesson Summary: The students will be introduced to The Things They Carried and the
coinciding research topic. The students will consider the things soldiers must literally and
figuratively carry by analyzing things they may carry in their lives.
Estimated Duration: 50 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1: The teacher will play the “She’s so heavy” music clip from Across the Universe to
introduce the novel.
Step 2: The teacher will then ask the students to briefly write a paragraph about something they
carry, whether it be literally something they carry on them at all times, or figuratively a burden
that they have in their lives.
Step 3: The class will discuss how these burdens relate to the novel and the Vietnam war.
Step 4: The teacher will then go through the online Times news article to show what the soldiers
carried.
Step 5: The teacher should then handout the Research Rubric and discuss the paper. Tell the
students that they must have a definitive topic by Friday (that is when the book should be
finished).
Step 6: The teacher should distribute the novel and write down the numbers of the books.
Step 7: The teacher should give the students a list of questions to consider while reading tonight.
Step 8: If there is time left in the period, the students should begin reading.
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis
Extension: Read pages 1-38 in The Things They Carried
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Two
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 2: The Draft- pros and cons
Lesson Summary: The students will analyze the pros and cons of instituting a national draft
during a time of war. The students will also analyze their reading from the previous night
through class discussion.
Estimated Duration: 50 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1: The teacher will distribute the Conscription and the U.S. Draft handout. The class will
read it aloud.
Step 2: The class will then discuss the pros and cons of instituting a draft during a time of
national crisis.
Step 3: The teacher will then have the students bring out their discussion questions to consider.
Step 4: The class will discuss according to the questions. Additional Questions to consider:
Why might Tim O’Brien choose to give each man specific items in
addition to the typical soldier’s gear? What do the items tell us about each
solder’s duties and personality? What do we learn about their hopes and desires?
Step 5: The teacher should ask the students what the difference between a memoir and fiction is.
State how the novel switched from writing in third person point of view in the first story, to first
person point of view in the second story.
Questions to Consider:
Is it acceptable to invent scenes or dialogue when writing a memoir? Why or why
not? Is it all right to add elements of real-life events in fiction writing? If so, must
the author let the reader know what is factual, and what is not?
Step 6: The teacher should then assign pages 39-88 for reading tonight, mentioning to use the
discussion questions as a guide.
Step 7: The students should read in the time remaining.
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis, Evaluation
Extension: Read pages 39-88 in The Things They Carried
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Three
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 3: Telling a True War Story
Lesson Summary: The students will analyze The Things They Carried through class discussion.
Estimated Duration: 40 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1: The teacher will ask the students to bring out their discussion questions to consider
worksheet.
Step 2: The teacher will facilitate a class discussion according to the questions on the worksheet.
Step 3: The teacher should then distribute the new discussion questions to consider and assign
pages 89-136 for tonight’s reading.
Step 4: If time permits, the teacher should give the students time to start tonight’s reading.
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis
Extension: Read pages 89-136 in The Things They Carried
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Four
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 4: Catch-up reading day and O’Brien’s imagery
Lesson Summary: The class will discover where they are along in the reading. They will pose
any questions and come up with a page to which they all know they can reach as a class.
Estimated Duration: 40 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1: The teacher should ask the students where they are along in the reading. The teacher
should discover which questions from the discussion packet to discuss as a class.
Step 2: The class should discuss the questions.
Step 3: If the students have done the reading, the teacher should discuss the implausibility the
short story “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong.”
The story Rat Kiley tells in “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” is highly
implausible. Ask your class if they feel its lack of believability makes it any less
compelling. How much of the story seems real? Is there a moral to Rat Kiley’s
story? How does O’Brien’s use of figurative language enhance the reader’s
experience?
Divide the class into three groups. Assign each group a topic: the topography of
Vietnam, the Green Berets, or Mary Anne’s transformation. Each group should
find instances of how O’Brien uses imagery to appeal to the readers’ senses.
Step 4: Have the groups find examples of imagery and write them on a sheet of paper how that
imagery places a picture in the reader’s mind.
Step 5: Each group should share their examples and imagine the pictures the author creates in the
reader’s mind.
Step 6: As a group, the class should decide upon a page that they could reach for tomorrow’s
class. The teacher should mention she will be observed tomorrow, so to be on your best
behavior!
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis
Extension: Read pages 1-38 in The Things They Carried
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Five
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Reading Process: Concepts of Print, Comprehension Strategies and Self-Monitoring Strategies
1. Apply reading comprehension strategies, including making predictions, comparing and
contrasting, recalling and summarizing and making inferences and drawing
conclusions.
2. Answer literal, inferential, evaluative and synthesizing questions to demonstrate
comprehension of grade-appropriate print texts and electronic and visual media.
Reading Applications: Literary Text
8. Evaluate ways authors develop point of view and style to achieve specific rhetorical
and aesthetic purposes (e.g., through use of figurative language, irony, tone,
diction, imagery, symbolism, and sounds of language), citing specific examples
from text to support analysis.
Lesson 5: Symbolism
Lesson Summary: The students will write three thought-provoking questions they have over the
book so far and discuss them as a class. The students will examine symbols in the novel and
decide possible meanings through individual work and class discussion.
Estimated Duration: 50 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1: The teacher will ask the students to sift through their novels and think about three,
difficult, or thought-provoking questions they have about the stories in the novel.
Step 2: The teacher will then collect the students’ questions and in turn hand out the symbolism
worksheet. The teacher will explain that the students are to write what they think each symbol
means while the teacher types their questions on the projector. (The teacher should add questions
to their list of questions).
Step 3: The teacher will have the students “circle up” while the class discusses each symbol in
the novel, along with possible symbols the students have discovered.
Step 4: After discussing symbols in the novel, the class will discuss the questions they created
(along with the teacher’s added questions).
Step 5: At the end of the discussion, the teacher should pass out pink exit slips to each student.
On the slips, the students are to write three things they found interesting from class discussion
today that relate to the novel. From these slips, the teacher can discover what the students are
getting out of the novel, and if they are grasping the concepts.
Step 6: The teacher should remind the students to finish the novel for Monday because there will
be a quiz.
Discuss the evolution of Norman Bowker’s character throughout the book. How
does “Speaking of Courage” show us the complex relationship between one
man, his fellow soldiers, his family, and friends in his hometown? Does learning
about Norman Bowker’s post-war life change the way we feel about his actions
during the attack that took Kiowa’s life? “Speaking of Courage” is the only story
other than the title story, “The Things They Carried,” that is written in the thirdperson
point of view. Why might O’Brien have chosen this narrative stance?
In “On the Rainy River” O’Brien writes, “Courage, I seemed to think, comes to
us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away
and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation
for that day when the account must be drawn down” (p. 40). Ask your class if
they believe there are any heroes in the book. If so, how do they display courage?
Does the narrator’s opinion of courage change during the course of the book?
Writing Exercise
Have students write a two-page essay considering how “Notes” expands the
way we read “Speaking of Courage.” How does the last paragraph of “Notes”
demonstrate O’Brien’s struggle to find the “truth” about the Vietnam War?
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis, Evaluation
Extension: Finish The Things They Carried
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Six
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 6: The Things They Carried Themes
Lesson Summary: The class will examine recurring themes throughout The Things They Carried
through class discussion and group work.
Estimated Duration: 40 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
 The Things They Carried explores the social pressures the soldiers faced,
both in choosing whether or not to serve in Vietnam and in the way
they conducted themselves while on patrol. It also examines each soldier’s
personal moral code and, more subtly, the politics surrounding the Vietnam
War. Throughout the book, O’Brien challenges the reader to consider what
constitutes truth and whether a well-told story can transcend the limits
of fiction.
1.) Social Pressure
Many of the soldiers’ actions are the result of social pressure: O’Brien’s
unwillingness to dodge the draft by fleeing to Canada even though he opposed the
war, the dark humor the unit displays in the villages, and the fact that they would
kill and die “because they were embarrassed not to” (p. 21). Ask your class to
identify instances where social pressure affects a character or the unit as a whole.
Is this pressure positive or is it a negative influence? Have students support their
answers with passages from the text.
2.) Personal Moral Code (Rat Kiley, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Tim O’Brien, Kiowa,
Norman Bowker)
Divide students into small working groups. Assign each group a character and
ask them to write a short analysis of the character’s individual moral code by
quoting passages from the book. Have each group share its findings. How do the
characters’ morals differ from one another? How are they the same?
3.) Truth
O’Brien plays with the line between fact and fiction throughout the book. “By
telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself.
You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an
incident that truly happened . . . and you carry it forward by inventing incidents
that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain” (p.
158). Ask your class to discuss ways O’Brien blurs the lines between reality and
imagination. How does this contribute to our understanding of the war?
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis, Evaluation
Extension: Start researching topic
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Seven
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 7: The Things They Carried as a great work of literature that will transcend time
Lesson Summary: The class will analyze whether The Things They Carried is a great work of
literature and evaluate reasons why. They will then respond to their liking or disliking of the text.
Estimated Duration: 40 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
 Great stories articulate and explore the mysteries of our daily lives in the
larger context of the human struggle. The writer’s voice, style, and use of
language inform the plot, characters, and themes. By creating opportunities
to learn, imagine, and reflect, a great book is a work of art that affects
many generations of readers, changes lives, challenges assumptions, and
breaks new ground.
 The Things They Carried is widely regarded as one of the most significant
works of literature about the Vietnam War. Robert Harris, book editor for
the New York Times, wrote:
Only a handful of novels and short stories have managed to clarify, in any
lasting way, the meaning of the war in Vietnam for America and for the
soldiers who served there.
 Tim O’Brien captures the war’s pulsating rhythms and nerve-racking
dangers. But he goes much further. By moving beyond the horror of the
fighting to examine with sensitivity and insight the nature of courage and
fear, by questioning the role that imagination plays in helping to form our
memories and our own versions of truth, he places The Things They Carried
high up on the list of best fiction about any war.
1.) Discussion Activities
Ask students to make a list of the characteristics of a great book. Write these
on the board. Do they agree with Robert Harris’s review of The Things They
Carried? A great writer can be the voice of a generation. What kind of voice
does Tim O’Brien create in The Things They Carried? What elevates a work of
fiction to greatness?
Ask them to discuss, within groups, other books they know that include some
of these characteristics. Do any of these books remind them of The Things They
Carried? Is this a great book? Why or why not?
2.) Writing Exercise
Ask students to write a short essay exploring their personal reactions to The
Things They Carried. Students should go beyond expressing like or dislike. Ask them
to make a list of emotions they felt while reading the book, and to examine why.
Which characters and scenes did they relate to, and which remained strange or
difficult to comprehend? Was the resolution of the book satisfying? Comforting?
Disturbing? Why?
Step 3: Remind students to start researching topics because the research paper is due next Friday.
(Find possible outline structure for the research paper)
Types of Questions: Analysis, Evaluation
Extension: Research topic and start writing paper! Remind students to go to computer lab on
Friday to research topic.
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Eight
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 8: Research- Day One
Lesson Summary: The students will have time in the computer lab to research their various
topics about the Vietnam War.
Estimated Duration: 40 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1: The student will be in the computer lab researching their various topics.
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis, Evaluation
Extension: Research topic and start writing paper! Remind students to go to the library on
Monday to further research topic.
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Nine
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 9: Research- Day Two
Lesson Summary: The students will have time in the library to research their various topics
about the Vietnam War.
Estimated Duration: 50 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1: The student will be in the library researching their various topics.
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis, Evaluation
Extension: Research topic and start writing paper!
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Ten
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 10: Outline/ MLA
Lesson Summary: The students will hand in their outlines and be introduced to MLA style and
how to utilize in-text citations.
Estimated Duration: 50 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1: The students will hand in their outlines.
Step 2: The teacher will lecture about MLA style and in-text citations.
Step 3: The students will take a quiz over MLA citations.
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Application, Analysis
Extension: Research topic and start writing paper!
Honors English 12
Unit: The Things They Carried Research Papers
Day Eleven
Ohio Academic Content Standards:
Writing Process: A, B, C, D, E, F
Writing Applications: D
Writing Conventions: A, B, C
Research: A, B, C, D, E, F
Reading Process: A, C
Reading Application II: B, C, D, E
Lesson 11:
Lesson Summary:
Estimated Duration: 50 minutes
Instructional Procedures:
Step 1:
.
Types of Questions: Knowledge, Analysis, Evaluation
Extension: Research topic and start writing paper!