1. Final Assessment

4.  Poetry o Write a poem about war, perhaps modeling it after the poem, “If,” we read in class. Write an accompanying explanation about what themes from the text you were trying to portray. o Write a “Found Poem” using phrases from the text and illustrate it. o Read additional war poems (either by the same authors or find others). Write an analysis of the poems you read and present the poems to the class.

5.  Drawing/Poster/Visual interpretation o Choose one of the themes above and draw scenes from various stories that illustrate the theme. Provide a passage from each story to show what you based your illustration on. o Create a poster or collage portraying the uniqueness of one of the characters. Use quotes from the text on your poster to justify the content of your poster. o Create a new cover for the book and write an accompanying description to explain your work. o Choose one of the stories that we did not read. (I recommend “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” or “The Lives of the Dead”). Retell the story as a comic strip or children’s style picture book, cutting the story down to its most important elements and illustrating each page. Present your work to the class.

6.  Creative Writing o Write a journal for one of the soldiers, with several entries reflecting his thoughts and feelings about specific events in the stories. o Write a series of letters home from one of the soldiers, perhaps Jimmy’s letters to Martha. o Write a letter to Tim O’Brien from one of the soldiers commenting on how Tim portrayed his character in the stories o Write obituaries for several of the characters who died in the book.

7.  Music o Write and perform a song for the opening credits of a movie based on the book. Write an accompanying description of how you wrote it, how it depicts the emotion of the novel, and how satisfied you are with the final version. o Compile a sound track for a movie based on the book, using existing songs. You’d need to choose 6 to 8 songs, match them up with a particular part of the book and explain your choice. o Identify one or more songs about war. Analyze the lyrics as if it were a poem. Include in your analysis how it relates to themes from our text.

8.  Miscellaneous o Platoon Time Capsule: Gather objects the platoon may have collected for a time capsule (perhaps to be opened at a 10 year reunion?). For each item write a short paragraph to explain its significance. o Care package. Put together a care package for one of the soldiers and write an accompanying letter to the soldier from a relative or friend. Include in the letter why you chose the items in the care package. o Platoon Scrapbook: Compile a scrapbook with pages memorializing several of the soldiers’ war experiences. Write an accompanying description to explain why you included several of the objects in the pages. o Therapy Session: For this option you will become a therapist to one of the characters returning from the war. Invent a conversation between one of the soldiers and his therapist after the war. Discuss at least one issue or incident from the war that is troubling or difficult to let go of. The therapist should try to offer some advice about how to resolve the issues, perhaps using Tim O’Brien’s solution as an example and explaining why that might be effective. This script could be performed for the class or recorded on video.

9. Some details to remember:  This is a major project grade. It should be evident that you spent at least two to three hours working on it.  Any project you choose should have at least some writing involved. If your project is purely a written project, you should figure on a minimum of three full pages of writing. If it’s an art or music oriented project you should be sure to accompany your work with a written description of how you created the work or why you made the choices you did (at least 1 page).  All written work should be typed.  Quotes from the text help you show that your work is linked in some way to the text. Try to find a way to include at least three quotes from the text, but I realize that some projects won’t lend themselves to quoting.  Try to choose a project that is meaningful to you and that allows you to show your talents. For example, if you have no art talent, please do not choose to create a cover illustration.  Most projects listed are appropriate for a person to complete alone. If you want to do a project with a partner it must be twice as time-consuming and twice as impressive. Please check with me to get approval for a partner project.