Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Reflections
English 102 – Summer 2011
I can’t believe it’s almost over. It has gone by quickly. It is looking like I may survive. This has been a challenging course. I have learned so much. I can now do a video or a blog if necessary and I don’t freeze at the word essay.
The most important skill I’ve begun to employ is to step back and look at pieces, individual elements. I’ve been able in the past to react to a poem or book but that only got me so far. Being able to break it down and really look at it brings much more understanding. I found this to be true with the poem “Photograph of September 11th”. It was only when I slowed down and looked at the how and why of the people suspended in time that the poem really took shape for me.
The readings for the class have special meanings for me. I am old enough to remember Vietnam. My stepbrother signed up to go to the war in 1967. He was only 17 and I was 6. I was young but I was still keenly aware of what was going on. As I grew and saw the repercussions of the war and I became a supporter of ask first, go to war later if at all.
My writing process has become more focused. I still need to work on organization.
My challenges in class revolved around each assignment. As I have stated, the word essay would stop me in my tracks. I have never done a video. I have never had (or read) a blog. I have never linked images or web sites. I have no idea what I will do for final presentation. At this point the focus is on completing the portfolio. I will complete the last week of assignments the way I have gotten through so far. I take a deep breath and attempt to tackle each element one at a time, otherwise I become overwhelmed.
I do have a suggestion and future students may hate me for this but here goes. I took English Comp. 101 literally thirty years ago (1981). I scored well on the compass test so I was allowed to go straight to 102. When I took 101 we did not all have a pc, I had no idea what MLA, 12 pt. font, and NTR were about. I think English ought to be treated like Math and Science. If Comp 101 has not been taken within the last ten years it should be a required course. This is actually my fourth attempt at Eng. 102. I have had to drop it for a variety of reasons. I think the main reason is my paralyzing fear of composition. If I had taken 101 again I think it would really have helped me.
Best of luck to all,
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Annotated Bibliography
Works Cited
Rowe, John. "Eye-Witness: Documentary Styles in the American Representations of Vietnam." Cultural Critique. 3.Spring (1986): 126-150. JSTOR Research library. Web.16 July 2011.
John Rowe speaks to the abundance of documentaries concerning Vietnam and their differing approaches. He examines how the style of the documentary and the medium tend to follow the director or authors personal views. In this article Mr. Rowe discusses documentaries ranging from Letters from Vietnam, 1966 to American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam, 1986. The use of some of the observations and conclusions drawn will help to underscore my premise that the glorification of war and values of honor and duty changed with the Vietnam War.
Singer, Mel. "Shame, Guilt, Self-Hatred and Remorse in the Psychotherapy of Vietnam Combat Veterans Who Committed Atrocities." American Journal of Psychotherapy 58.4 (2004): 377,377-85. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 16 July 2011.
Mel Singer deals with the psychological effect of the Vietnam War on the ones who served. He discusses Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The article deals with the personal and external experiences of the soldier and the psychological repercussions.
The conclusion to the piece offers suggestions geared toward helping the veteran to come to an acceptance of him or herself. My view of the changing value embedded in the American soldier is shown by the graying of the lines between right and wrong, duty and cowardice. The illusions of a victorious war were slipping away and forever changed our idolized notion of the soldier.
Wolpin, Miles D. "Military Professionals and the Peace Movement." Peace Review 10.1 (1998): 99-106. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 16 July 2011.
In 1988 a questionnaire was sent out to 90 members of the Center for Defense Information’s Military Advisory Council. The goal was to see which members would be more likely to support antiwar or peace advocacy groups. The desire was to have officers become involved in the peace movement, thus giving it more recognition. Of the 90 surveys sent, 40 were returned. The officers who participated on the survey were an average age of 68. A majority of them entered service in late 1930’s or early 1940’s. They joined the military with a sense of idealism and honor. Over the decades of service their views had shifted. Their experiences led them to consider nonmilitary means of resolution. In my essay I will use this shift of focus to emphasize the changing of the value of war. It was not just the ground soldier or the hippie who began to question war. The men at the top also became disillusioned.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Close Reading of Passage
Vietnam Memorial
“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.”
(Tim O’Brien “The Things They Carried”, 68-69)
I think this passage is the crux of O’Brien’s message. War is not moral. War is killing or being killed. War is humping (O’Brien 4). It is moving from one day to the next, over the same ground, doing the same thing, hoping to come out alive.
In the old days (before Vietnam) war was considered one’s duty and an honor. The world had visions of heroism, bravery and strength. War brought up images of John Wayne and Gregory Peck fighting the evil enemy and returning victorious. There was a morality to war. We were victorious because we were on the side of the moral right. It had to be so or we would have lost, like the evil Germans or Japanese.
Vietnam was a whole new ball game. We weren’t winning, it wasn’t even a war. It challenged everyone’s views on war, government, political agendas.
Tim O’Brien peels back the veneer of morality in order to show that war isn’t moral. There is no honor in killing. It is just killing. His stories are filled with images of horrible things and they tell of how young men tried to cope (or couldn’t cope) with the realities of being put in places they never knew existed and doing things they never dreamed they could do.
O'Brien, Tim. "The Things They Carried". New York: Huffington Mifflin, 1990. Print.
Image: http://www.goiam.org/index.php/territories/western/7288-iam-pays-for-care-of-vietnam-memorial
Image: http://www.goiam.org/index.php/territories/western/7288-iam-pays-for-care-of-vietnam-memorial
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