Required Writing: When the Truth Isn’t Sufficient

Part of a unit of study called When the Truth Isn’t Sufficient. Preceded by The Age of the Essay, What Is Literature For?, The Practice of Empathy, and Organization: Getting Things Done. These preceding units covered the art and purpose of writing essays and reading literature; the central skill taught through literature, which is empathy; and the substructural organization needed to tackle complex texts and tasks.

Animating quotation by Tim O’Brien, author of the assured novel, The Things They Carried:

That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.


Essential Questions


These questions relate thematically to The Things They Carried, but they are essential apart from that novel. Note that some of these questions come from Facing History and Ourselves materials, including the FHAO resources for Elie Wiesel’s Night.

Your task is to explore the following essential questions:

  1. What is the relationship between our stories and our identities?
  2. To what extent are we all witnesses of history and messengers to humanity?
  3. To what extent will the decisions we make now affect us and others in the future?
  4. How does an individual keep his or her humanity when surrounded by inhumanity?
  5. To what extent can we make the “right” moral decision when faced with adversity?

You will answer those five questions in two parts.

First, you will complete this Google Form, which is also posted to Google Classroom. Having everyone’s responses online will allow us to work anonymously and collaborative on the meaning of these questions.

Second, you will use what we gain from those group discussions and any individual feedback to expand on the original, individual answers. This will likely take the form of an optional “river” essay.

Direct link to the Google Form: https://forms.gle/4CCdP9QEMhfaFHry5


Reader-Response Essay


In the makerspace, there is a universal and modular writing process that works for open-ended essays as well as required ones. Here is a direct link: tinyurl.com/sisyphus-writes. This proprietary style can be attached to any rubric, prompt, etc, as explored in the first unit of the year.

For this unit, you will respond to The Things They Carried through a reader-response essay. Reader-response theory covers many genres and formats — see this post for the complete rundown — but we will focus on the basic format used in other English classes:

Your prompt will be simple enough: Write a reader-response essay about The Things They Carried. To do this, you’ll be given excerpts and specific chapters to read in class, and you’ll watch O’Brien read “Ambush.” Even students who read nothing else will have fodder for a reader’s response. The process, as always, will be central.

Note: The suggested focuses of your reader-response essay will be posted separately.

This time, you must also submit your writing to Turnitin. Here is a brief overview of the service, if you’re unfamiliar with it: Turnitin.com Instructions.

When Turnitin is made part of the process, it is a required part of the process. It’s preparation for the many colleges that use similar services, but it’s also a friendly reminder of the need for integrity and honesty in here. Codes and keys for each class period will be posted to Google Classroom.

2019-2020: Turnitin.com Registration Info

Reprinted here for 2019-2020. Find your period, copy the class ID and enrollment key, and register at Turnitin.com.

Class Name: P2 English 12
Class ID: 23156813
Enrollment Key: tardigrade

Class Name: P3 English 12
Class ID: 23156818
Enrollment Key: tardigrade

Class Name: P6 English 12
Class ID: 23156822
Enrollment Key: tardigrade

Class Name: P7 English 12
Class ID: 23156826
Enrollment Key: tardigrade

Class Name: P8 English 12
Class ID: 23156834
Enrollment Key: tardigrade


Emulation Through Analysis


This will be a shorter response that invites you to emulate O’Brien’s style through a “The Things I Carry” piece. In the makerspace, this would be a collaborative exercise in creative and critical thinking: What do students carry — tangible and intangible — into school everyday? What does that mean, and how can we convey that meaning in emulative writing?

While creative exercises are enjoyable, this is the response that may be sacrificed to the altar of required and assured experiences. There is only so much time, after all, which leaves prompts like this as optional work.

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