Today’s Agenda
• Conference sign up
• Criteria for Inquiry 2
• Identify themes: Discussion of themes and
group activity.
Criteria
• PROCESS
• ADHERENCE TO GUIDELINES
• INQUIRY AND ARGUMENT
• ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE
• STYLE, FLUENCY, MECHANICS
Process
• Proposal-Complete, organized, clear and
proofread.
• Rough draft- substantial draft, on time.
• Writer’s memo-thoughtful reflection on
process, insightful analysis of your own work,
unifying focus or topic discussed.
Adherence to guidelines
• Paper length- 4-6 pages
• Four sources used-appropriate, scholarly
articles and Works Cited page
• Close reading- how do you tie in the book in
your discussion and incorporate quotes
• Textual support- quotes from sources,
properly cited and formatted.
Inquiry and argument
• Is there a identifiable thesis? Is it specific,
focused, and insightful?
• How fully are thoughts developed?
Complexity of argument? Do the sources
relate? Are they synthesized into the paper?
• No “dropped” quotes. Successfully
paraphrased? Is the close reading utilized?
• Is there a lot of textual support?
Organization and Structure
• Does it follow a logical flow?
• Are the transitions smooth and related?
• Is there support evidence for arguments?
Style, Fluency, Mechanics
• Are ideas well articulated?
• Lack of wordiness, repetition, or “filler”
content.
• Is the paper clean and error free? Are there
proofreading errors? Grammatical and
punctuation problems?
• Is the tone clear and academic?
Group discussion Questions
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).
Identify instances where social pressure affects a character or the unit as a whole. Is this pressure
positive or is it a negative influence? Support your answers with passages from the text.
Personal Moral Code
In your group identify one character you want to focus on and communally write a short analysis of the
character’s individual moral code by quoting passages from the book. Share your findings with the
class. How do the characters’ morals differ from one another? How are they the same?
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). Discuss ways O’Brien blurs the lines between reality and imagination. How does this contribute to
our understanding of the war?
Homework
• Read “The Ghost Soldiers,” “Night Life” and
“The Lives of the Dead.” Provide a brief
summary of each of the stories (no longer
than a paragraph for all) and discuss what
conclusions O’Brien leaves his readers with at
the conclusion of “The Things They Carried.”
• Work on rough drafts!