UNIT 3: MAKING CHANGE IN AMERICA
Unit Overview
How did Vietnam and the 1960s significantly change American society?
How does war still affect society and individuals today?
What is the importance of genre, audience, purpose, and style when writing?
In our third unit, we'll take a closer look at how the 1960s was the decade that changed America. We will expand our definition of "text" to examine a variety of literary and nonfiction genres such as movies, songs, podcasts, TV broadcasts, and political cartoons. We'll examine several text genres on the Vietnam War and 1960s America analyzing the importance of genre, audience, purpose, and style when reading and writing. Our end of the unit performance task will be to compile all our created texts for the unit into a personal anthology for each student.
Reading & Writing Skills
-
Genre
-
Audience
-
Purpose
-
Style
-
Literary Devices
-
Characterization
-
Foreshadowing & Flashback
-
UNIT 3 TEXTS
A coming-of-age tale for young adults set in the trenches of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, this is the story of Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through.
Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why black troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the U.S. is even there at all. (Source)
*This novel contains some mature themes and content. While the excerpts we'll read in class have been edited to be age appropriate, they still contain mild profanity.
The Vietnam Reader is a selection of the finest and best-known art from the American war in Vietnam, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, film, still photos, and popular song lyrics. All the strongest work is here, from mainstream bestsellers to radical poetry, from Tim O'Brien to Marvin Gaye. Also included are incisive reader's questions--useful for educators and book clubs--in a volume that makes an essential contribution to a wider understanding of the Vietnam War.
This authoritative and accessible volume is sure to become a classic reference, as well as indispensable and provocative reading for anyone who wants to know more about the war that changed the face of late-twentieth-century America. (Source)
Language Skills
-
Verb Problems
-
Comma Rules
-
Run-ons, Comma Splices, Fragments
-
Using Quotations
-
Adjectives & Adverbs