Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran FoerA Curriculum Unit by

Najwa SweilemConrad Schumacher

Centennial Park School

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Table of Contents

Rationale …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….....3Essential Questions …………………………………………………………………………………………….5Unit at a Glance …………………………………………………………………………………………………...6Opening Acts

Get to Know You Business Card ………………………………………………………...10Set Community Norms ………………………………………………………………………….11Carousel Photo Exhibit………………………………………………………………………….12Impressions …………………………………………………………………………………………….15

Main StageOPB Witness Activity …………………………………………………………………………...19

Golden Lines/Notetaker/Annotations………………………………………………..22Witness Narratives ……………………………………………………………………………….27Found Poem

……………………………………………………………………………………………...28Things I About/Things I Wish I Didn’t Know About……………………….31Personal Timelines…………………………………………………………………………………...32Stuff That Happened to Me………………………………………………………………….33Inquiry Circles ………………………………………………………………………………………...34#Hashtag into an Evidence Paragraph…………………………………………………35Three Voice Poem …………………………………………………………………………………...37Evidence Wall/Evidence Strips …………………………………………………………...41Heavy Boots and Light Boots………………………………………………………………...42Business Cards ………………………………………………………………………………………...46Character Biological Index Cards ………………………………………………………..47Loud & Close Visuals ……………………………………………………………………………….48Personal Narrative ………………………………………………………………………………….50Possible Prompts ……………………………………………………………………………………..53Deepak Chopra ………………………………………………………………………………………...55Wall of Thesis Statements …………………………………………………………………..57

Closing Acts:Final Portfolio Requirements …………………………………………………………………60Letter to Dr M. Fleetwood …………………………………………………………………….62Unit Reflection…………………………………………………………………………………………..64

Appendices and Resources9/11 Witness Accounts…………………………………………………………………………….68Hiroshima Witness Accounts ………………………………………………………………...79Dresden Witness Accounts …………………………………………………………………...85Bruce Springsteen Songs ……………………………………………………………………….92Bateson

……………………………………………………………………………………………………...94Debono

……………………………………………………………………………………………………....96Notes & Ideas ………………………………………………………………………………………...99Dedications ………………………………………………………………………………………………

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Educational Rationale for teaching JS Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, delves into the issues of death, loss, and generational trauma. It is based on the shared seminal American experience of 9/11. The book also references other historical “tragedies” including the Dresden fire bombings, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust. Students will be given the chance in reading, discussion and class activities to engage in and examine “histories” that are quite honestly, seldom taught truthfully-at the very least only from one perspective. The novel is engaging and will be high interest for students. The novel deals with the themes of trauma, loss and grief, which will potentially resonate with our students. The book is a multi-media text that will create multiple avenues of entry for different learning styles and help us explore the Essential Question of: How are text and image used in the structure of the narrative?

Oskar is an relatable, interesting, likeable character with much to offer our students by way of examining one of the Essential Question: How do I live a good life/become a good person in difficult times? Through the study of Oskar, students will see and experience the habit of resilience. We want our students to read a novel in full which is not currently a common practice at our school, nor an academic experience they are given. We want them to have a different educational experience than they’re having in other classes while giving them something more educationally challenging. Opportunities related to the book for writing, discussion and group work will be key components of the unit. Students will have multiple chances to improve and sharpen their academic and analytic skills. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a book we want to use to help students access their own stories and creativity as writers and thinkers. We want students to use the joy in Foyer’s book/ structure to create their own pieces. This relates to our Essential Question of: How can we use the creativity of others to inspire our own creativity? Students will have multiple opportunities for writing and self-reflection. We expect our students to delve into their experiences and share their knowledge/discoveries and experiences with others. We know the wisdom is in the room. Most of all, perhaps, we desire to create Community through sharing writing, reading, discussion and discovery and exploration of what it means to be a human.

Some possible obstacles and struggles/roadblocks for students:

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In the novel there are three storylines, four narrators and time jumps. Sorting out the structure of the work and figuring out who is writing/speaking at the time can be challenging for any reader. This structural piece is an important element of the story-including how the images and visuals are incorporated into the text. This relates to the Essential Question of: How are text and image used to help enhance the structure of the narrative?

Students may not have knowledge of tragic events: 9/11, (The Holocaust), Dresden, Hiroshima, so we will need to build background knowledge. This relates to the Essential Questions of:Why do we look at history with a mono lens? andHow are we continuing to fail to learn from history and continuing to make the same mistakes?

Perhaps most importantly how will students who have experienced loss or trauma be negatively affected by reading this story?This is a question of class and school culture as well as a question of curriculum and design. We will need a safe (to quote Grandma from the book) “It is necessary.” environment to explore, question, answer and heal as we read the novel. We have included in our curriculum activities and prompts to help us and our students work through our past losses, griefs and traumas. We have also created curriculum to acknowledge the other HEALING side so necessary in this novel and in this process. This relates to our (please excuse the Umbrella!) Essential Questions of:

How do I deal with trauma loss hurt and grief?How do you process grief...?Do we believe we are alone in our experiences and feelings? Or is everything connected?Does everything happen for a reason?Is trauma inherited?How are trauma, loss, grief and healing all entwined? Necessary parts of life?What if we celebrate death in the same way we celebrate birth?Why do we not inherit healing?

Essential Questions

● How are text and image used in the structure of the narrative?4

● How do I live a good life/become a good person in difficult times?● How can we use the creativity of others to inspire our own

creativity?● Why do we look at history with a mono lens? ● How are we continuing to fail to learn from history and continuing to

make the same mistakes?● How do I deal with trauma loss hurt and grief?● How do you process grief...?● Do we believe we are alone in our experiences and feelings? Or is

everything connected?● Does everything happen for a reason?● Is trauma inherited?● How are trauma, loss, grief and healing all entwined? Are they

necessary parts of life?● What if we celebrate death in the same way we celebrate birth?● Why do we not inherit healing?

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Lesson Outline and Reading Schedule

Day Title/Narrator Lessons Pages

1 to 5plus possible flex day

Opening Acts:-Business Card-Norms-Carousel

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-Impression

6 1-What the?Oskar

-Bearing Witness-Witness Narratives-Golden Lines/Note Takers/Annotations

1-15

7 2-Why I’m not where you are 5/21/63 Grandpa

-Found Poem16-34

8 3-GoogolplexOskar

--Things I know about/Things I wish I didn’t know about

35-55

9 3-Continued -Stuff that Happened to MePersonal Timelines +/-

56-74

10 4-My FeelingsGrandma

Inquiry Circles 75-85

11 5-The Only AnimalOskar

-# quotes 86-109

12 6-Why I’m not where you are 5/21/63 Grandpa

3 voice poem examples and introductions

108-120

13 6-Continued Theme Wall and Evidence Strips

120-141

14 7-Heavy crossed out Heavier BootsOskar

Heavy Boots and Light Boots

142-160

15 7-Continued 160-173

16 8-My FeelingsGrandma

Loud & Close Visuals

174-186

17 9-Happiness, HappinessOskar

Business Cards and Character Cards# Characters

186-207

18 10-Why I’m not where you are 4/12/78Grandpa

Personal Narrative 208-216

19 11-The sixth borough

Healing Childhood Anger

217-223

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Thomas Schell 3rd person

Deepak Chopra

20 12-My FeelingsGrandma

Dealing with PainDeepak Chopra

224-233

21 13-Alive and AloneOskar

234-249

22 13-Continued 250-261

23 14-Why I’m not where you are 9/11/03Grandpa

Thesis/Claim Walls 262-273

24 14-Continued 274-284

25 15-A simple solution to an impossible problemOskar

Healing a Historic or Personal TraumaDealing with DualityDeepak Chopra

285-295

26 15 296-305

27 16-My FeelingsGrandma

The 4th InsightDeepak Chopra

306-314

28 17-Beautiful and TrueOskar

Heroic Journey Board Games

315-320

29 17-Continued Final Portfolio Idea 320-326+Flipbook

30 Flex Day Physical /Visual Product

31-36 Final So What Letter to Sam B.and Unit reflection and Assessment

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OPENING ACTS

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Get to know you business card…

1. As a way of introduction, create a business card for yourself and one other person. Use only one word to describe yourself and your other person.

Example:

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2. Once you have created your business cards, introduce yourself and share your cards with others in the classroom community. Be ready to introduce your final partner to the class. 3. Introduce your partner using their name and word.4. Display your business card on the theme wall.

Setting Community Norms

Because at times we are dealing with historical traumas, loss, and grief, we will have to focus on creating a safe, classroom environment where we can share our writing, listen with empathy,

Using Think-Pair-Share strategy...

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Think of where you feel safe and are able to say what you think and feel without judgement.

With a partner answer the question:

What does a safe classroom environment look like for writing, sharing, discussion?

Share out your ideas with the class and brainstorm a list of possible norms.

Pare down norms to 3-4 norms.

Repeat the process to answer these questions:

How do we hold people accountable for adhering to the norms? What is the agreed upon “process” for checking one another? How will we do this? Phrase? Sign?

We will review the norms at minimum weekly as well as create more activity specific norms for reading, writing, group work etc.

Carousel Photos Exhibit

CarouselA Pre-Reading and Post-Reading Strategy Description:CAROUSEL is a small group activity that helps students activate prior knowledge and allows them to discuss, elaborate and problem-solve. Steps:1) The teacher prepares questions, or pulls quotes from the text, to generate interest and to elicit other student questions based on an up-coming unit. The

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teacher writes the questions on separate sheets of chart paper, which are then placed around the room. (Also see OBSERVATION CHARTS)2) Students are divided into groups of 3-4 members and given a different color marker (no yellow, of course, too hard to see).3) Each group stands in front of a question and brainstorms possible answers to the question. One member writes the group’s answers on the chart paper.4) When the teacher gives the signal, each group rotates to the next station with their color marker and answers the new question.5) Continue rotating several times, or until all groups get to all questions.6) Follow-up to this activity:· Each group reviews all the comments at one of the carousel stations, summarizes and reports back to the class.· Each group categorizes the responses on one sheet and responds back to the full group.· The whole class makes predictions about the content of the unit. Potential problem:If wall space is a problem, the various sheets of carousel response paper can be moved from group to group instead of the groups moving from sheet to sheet. Variations:1) This activity also works well as a review at the end of a unit of study.2) Instead of using questions on butcher paper, use a collection of photographs that connect to the historical times of a novel or play. Ask students, while they browse the photos with their group, to write and talk about the following:· Observations: Describe without judgment what you see in the photos.· Connections: Do the photos remind you of anything in your life? In history?· What story or memories emerge from the photos for you as you move from photo to photo.· Questions: What do you want to know more about? What are you wondering about?(See student handout on next page.)

Carousel Photos Exhibit As you browse the photos with your group, write and talk about the following: · Observations: Describe without judgment what you see in the photos.

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· Connections: Do the photos remind you of anything in your life? History? · What story or memories emerge from the photos for you as you move from photo to photo? · Questions: What do you want to know more about? What are you wondering about?

Images from the book:

Falling Man p 59Central Park Pic p 60-61Purple p 63Crying Elephant p 94Doorknob p 115Coney island p148Picture of the Yes/No hands p 260-61Key p 303

Additional images in Word Document:

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Empire State Building Observation DeckTambourineTwin Towers 9/11Migrating BirdsAlas, poor Yorick!Stephen HawkingBombing HiroshimaAnswering MachineMissing Persons Wall

Impressions, An Opening Act (also part of the ongoing main stage)

In small groups students will be given a series of quotes- “Impressions” of the book they are about to read. On chart paper they will write down predictions of what they think the story will be about based on the quotes. The quotes will be used as “predictive evidence” of what impressions they have of such story elements as character, setting, plot, tone, theme etc.

My most impressive song that I can play on my tambourine is “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” by Nicholai Rimsky-Korsakov, which is also the ringtone I downloaded for the cell phone I got after Dad died.

One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone’s hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which is something I know about, but don’t really want to know about.

Please marry me.

“Ha,ha,ha!” She flipped forward and pointed at, “Please marry me.” I flipped forward and pointed at,”I’m sorry this is the smallest I’ve got.”

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“Mom?” “Yes?” “It doesn’t make me feel good when you say that something I do reminds you of Dad.”

Every time I left our apartment to go searching for the lock, I became a little lighter, because I was getting closer to Dad. But I also became a little heavier, because I was getting farther from Mom.

“ The fall play this fall is Hamlet, in case you’re interested. I’m Yorick.”

Until that day,Most sincerely,Stephen Hawking

But a friction began to arise between Nothing and Something…

There came a point, a year or two ago, when our apartment was more Nothing than Something, that in itself didn’t have to be a problem, it could have been a good thing, it could have saved us.

Excuse me, where do you get tickets?

The next performance was only Grandma again. She cried at all the wrong times and cracked up at all the wrong times.

“Oskar, I think you made Gail feel quite uncomfortable.” “What do you mean?” “I could tell that she felt embarrassed.” “I was just trying to be nice.” “You might have tried too hard.” “How can you try to hard to be nice?”

“They couldn’t feed themselves because they couldn’t get their hands to their mouths! So you know what they did!” “They starved?” “They fed each other! That’s the difference between heaven and hell! In hell we starve! In heaven we feed each other!” “I don’t believe in the afterlife.” “Neither do I, but I believe in the story!”

Message three. 9.31am Hello? Hello? Hello?

Why are you leaving me?He wrote, I do not know how to live.I do not know either, but I am trying.I do not know how to try.

To my unborn child,

To my child,

“Life is scarier than death.”

I love you,Your Father

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Even though I didn’t want to, I started inventing.

“He sounds calm in the last message.” I told him, “I read something in National Geographic about how, when an animal thinks it’s going to die, it gets panicky and starts to act crazy. But when it knows it’s going to die, it gets very, very calm.”

I’m still sorry.

The day after the renter and I dug up Dad’s grave, I went to Mr. Black's apartment.

“ Because people hurt each other. That’s what people do.”

I asked him, “Do you forgive me?”“Do I forgive you?”“Yeah.”“For not being able to pick up?”“For not being able to tell anyone.”

I thought about waking her.But it was unnecessary.There would be other nights.And how can you say I love you to someone you love?I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar.It’s always necessary.I love you,Grandma

“How come you didn’t die in the accident?” Mom said, “ That’s enough, Oskar.” Ron said, “I wasn’t in the car.”

I reversed the order, so the last one was first, and the first one was last. When I flipped through them, it looked like the man was floating up through the sky.

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Main Stage

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Taken From OPB’s Teaching GuideElie Wiesel First Person Singular

Activity Two: Bearing Witness

"I believe that anyone who lived through an experience is duty bound to bear witness to it." — From Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular1. Help students understand what it means to speak as a witness, by having them write a poem, essay or story or create a work of art about an event they saw — or "witnessed" — in person.

2. They might choose an incident as immediate as walking by a homeless person sleeping in a doorway or catching another student cheating on a test. Or they might describe how they experienced the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Encourage them along the writing path with "It's important to remember…" or "I saw it with my own eyes."

Teacher Note: Look at this for later as well as the link to the Heroism Projects Curriculum Below(Activity Three: Making a Difference)

"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe… And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all." — Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1986Part I1. Write on the board or hand out a printed version of Wiesel's statement above.

2. Have students spend ten minutes writing in their journals, or talking to a partner, investigating, explaining, and exploring the meaning of the quote. Use any or all of the following prompts: Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not? Can you think of any experiences you have had that validate or contradict this idea? What, if any, are the personal implications of

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this statement? What questions do you have about this statement?

3. After individual journal writing, ask students to share their thoughts and insights in small groups or as a whole class. Ask students to think about this idea as they go through their day. Were there any incidents in class or at home that related to this idea?

Part IIAdapted from The Heroism Projecthttp://www.heroism.org/curriculum.html

1. Discuss the fact that we all have the power to have a positive impact on the local "world" around us. We are all part of the communities in which we live, and we each have the ability to make a difference — by encouraging tolerance, helping someone in need, fighting an injustice or simply speaking our minds.

2. Using the lists below as suggestions, have students work individually or with a partner to find out about a human rights activist individual or organization. Ideally, students will identify people and/or organizations in the community, with whom they might be able to make a connection.

a. If students select individuals, what did they do (or are they doing)? Why? What kind of risks did they take, if any? How did their actions impact the world? A possible source for this unit is Michael Collopy's Architects of Peace: Visions of Hope in Words and Images (New World Library).

People: Martin Luther King Jr., Helen Caldicott, Alfred Nobel, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Jesse Jackson, Chief Seattle, Dr. Maria Montessori, Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Nelson Mandela, Albert Schweitzer, Andrei Sakharov, Jane Addams, , Linus Pauling, Lech Walesa, Susan B. Anthony, Cesar Chavez, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Emma Goldman, Medgar Evers, Dalai Lama, Dorothy Day, Rachel Carson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh.

b. If they select an organization, have them investigate what contributions these or other organizations they identify make to society. What, if anything, do these contributions have to do with human rights and tolerance?

Organizations: Project Open Hand, Teach for America, Unicef, Unesco, Shanti, Zen Hospice Center, United Nations, American Civil Liberties Union, Global Women's Council, Amnesty International, NAACP, International Court of Justice, N.O.W., Catholic Charities, La Casa de Las Madres, Holocaust Museum, Museum of Tolerance, Mother Teresa's Home for Abandoned Children.

Part IIIAdapted from The Heroism Project

1. Encourage students to spend a few days reading the local and national news, doing research on the Internet, taking notice of things around the

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school and community and thinking about a project to undertake as individuals, in small groups or as a class to make a contribution. One might write a letter to his congressman about a national human rights issue. Another might take blankets to a local homeless shelter. A small group might visit a convalescent home and spend a few hours with the residents. A pair might spend a couple of hours cleaning up the playground in a low-income neighborhood.

2. Ask students to submit a plan, including how they chose the project, what they intend to do and how they will proceed.

3. After students have completed their projects, meet as a class to discuss how it went. Ask each person or group to present a short oral (and written) report on the process. Did they feel the project they selected was something that made a difference? Did they enjoy the process, planning and execution? Would they choose to do something like that again?

AssessmentStudents will be assessed on the quality of their participation in class discussions, the quality of their writing, and the quality of their presentations.

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As resource materials and common class practices we will become familiar with and use on a regular basis these three reading strategies:

1)Golden Lines2)Key Concept and Personal Response Notetaker3)Annotations

Golden Lines is a method where as you read you highlight the “Golden” (think WOW I wish I’d written that!!) sections/sentences of what you are reading.We will be using this to help in class discussions as well as writing the “Found” Poems and finding quotes for your Stuff that happened to me books.

More in depth information is below:RA Routines Sheet: Golden Lines Golden Lines is a routine that asks students to note or highlight “golden lines”—lines or short passages from a text that are particularly meaningful to the student for some reason. This is a protocol you can use with any text you want students to read. What it’s good for:· Creating a low-risk way for all students to access to text and participate in activities· Focusing attention on crucial parts of a text· Making personal connections to a text· Assessing students’ interests and understanding· Looking for patterns/tendencies in a class as a whole STEP ONE: Set a focus for readingParticipation structure: Individual It’s important for them to know what they should be highlighting. The focus you set depends upon your reasons for asking students to read the text. Some possibilities for highlighting:Anything that seems particularly important (for whatever reason the student chooses)Anything that seems particularly important to know/understand about _____________Anything that you don’t understand (or don’t understand about ____________)

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Anything that you really disagree with Possible supports: Let students know how they might/should be reading (quick-read, careful read, etc.).Let students know how much time they’ll have to read. STEP TWO: Students readParticipation Structure: Individual Be sure to have some way for students to mark their Golden Lines. If it’s a text they can write on, highlighters can be helpful. If they can’t write on the text, some kind of note-taking sheet will work. You might also use sticky notes. STEP THREE: SharingParticipation Structure: Varies; you can use pairs, small groups, or whole-group sharing You’ll want some way of knowing what students chose as their golden lines. If you do whole-group sharing, consider ways of making sure that you hear varied voices/perspectives. You might use Whip Around, numbered sticks, or some other method of making sure you hear from many students in a quick time. You’ll probably want students to share what they highlighted and then explain why they highlighted it.

Our Note-taker (and if this one does not work for you will will invent/find one that does!!)

Key Concept/Evidence and Personal Response Note-taker Name_________________________________________ As you read the passage from Mr. Vonnegut about the bombing of Dresden from his book Slaughterhouse Five highlight / underline the sentences or

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passages that make the most meaning to you/help you visualize what the bombing must have been like. After you have finished reading copy the evidence/passages from the text in the chart below and next to them write your personal responses. When necessary please cite the page and paragraph in the evidence column. Focus on your questions and personal connections in your responses. Example Text Section: Every day we walked into the city and dug into basements and shelters to get the corpses out, as a sanitary measure. When we went into them, a typical shelter, an ordinary basement usually, looked like a streetcar full of people who’d simultaneously had heart failure. Just people sitting there in their chairs, all dead. A fire storm is an amazing thing. It doesn’t occur in nature. It’s fed by the tornadoes that occur in the midst of it and there isn’t a damned thing to breathe. We brought the dead out. They were loaded on wagons and taken to parks, large open areas in the city which weren’t filled with rubble. The Germans got funeral pyres going, burning the bodies to keep them from stinking and from spreading disease. 130,000 corpses were hidden underground. It was a terribly elaborate Easter egg hunt. We went to work through cordons of German soldiers. Civilians didn’t get to see what we were up to. After a few days the city began to smell, and a new technique was invented. Necessity is the mother of invention. We would bust into the shelter, gather up valuables from people’s laps without attempting identification, and turn the valuables over to guards. Then soldiers would come with a flame thrower and stand in the door and cremate the people inside. Get the gold and jewelry out and then burn everybody inside. For example:Evidence from text-Rationale Personal Response

looked like a streetcar full of people who’d simultaneously had heart failure. Just people sitting there in their chairs, all dead

How can someone handle such a sight? Is it possible not to be traumatized by this?

Evidence from text-Rationale Personal Response

The Germans got funeral pyres This sounds so matter of fact-and

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going, burning the bodies to keep them from stinking and from spreading disease. 130,000 corpses were hidden underground. It was a terribly elaborate Easter egg hunt

the dark humor of relating it to an Easter Egg hunt?? Why would you want to find a dead body-but that’s the joke right-I guess humor really can help us through tragedies and grief

After a few days the city began to smell, and a new technique was invented. Necessity is the mother of invention

Difficult times demand difficult measures I can’t help but thinking/ making the connection of Oskar here-his inventions- and how he wants to stop inventing-can we have some good inventions please! How do we shut our brains down during difficult times-or can we do anything other than shut down? Is there a wrong way to deal with this terrible stuff??

And finally our Guide on How to Annotate or Yea!!! I get to mark-up the text!!

Annotation Guidelines (or writing in/on the margins/paper)

For the texts we read in class please use these marks for annotating.

These will aid you in our class discussions and also in your reading/writing responses.

Ask me how???

A-This means this is something you find yourself strongly agreeing with, whether it is a feeling, opinion, character, experience or even description. D- This means this is something you find yourself strongly disagreeing with, whether it is a feeling, opinion, character, experience or even description.

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??-This means that you find this puzzling or confusing either because of lack of information or knowledge, or maybe you just want to know more about this. !*!-This means you are surprised, in a new-good way, you have an AHA!, a WOW! I wish I’d said that or thought of that or maybe even one of those moments where AHA! This finally makes sense when I see it this way.

STHTM- In the book this is the Stuff That Happened to Me annotate here for things you want to discuss in class, things that inspire and remind you to write in your own book V-This means you have found a vocabulary word you don’t know or recognize, or a word you’d like to add to your own vocabulary.

Witness Accounts in Resources...

There are numerous witness accounts for Dresden, Hiroshima, and 9/11 in the resources. These will serve as texts to enhance background knowledge, as well as, pieces from which to gather lines for the Found Poem.

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Found Poem

Example of a found poem: “110 Stories” by John M. Ford

As a group, you will create a found poem based on witness accounts of Dresden, Hiroshima or 9/11.

1. Reread the witness accounts from Dresden, Hiroshima, and 9/11 and highlight the Golden Lines that you find powerful, interesting or moving.

2. Make a list of your Golden Lines ( highlighted words and phrases), then edit

your list by cutting out words and phrases that are ordinary or lackluster. You should have a minimum of 20 amazing lines.

3. Read over the lines and consider the tone of the piece. How will you organize the pieces to give the poem power and beauty? Play with the phrases until you find the combination that creates the feeling and sound that best conveys the spirit of the historical event.

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4. You may change punctuation and tenses to make the words fit together, but try to honor the witness accounts by leaving their words intact. Add words if you absolutely must, but keep them to a minimum.

5. Read the poem aloud and make necessary edits.

6. Add a title that speaks to the spirit of the poem.

7. Think about laying out the poem in a visual manner that helps the reader understand the poem.

110 Storiesby John M. Ford

This is not real. We've seen it all before.Slow down, you're screaming. What exploded? When? I guess this means we've got ourselves a war. And look at -- Lord have mercy, not again.I heard that they went after Air Force One. Call FAA at once if you can't land. They say the bastards got the Pentagon.The Capitol. The White House. Disneyland .I was across the river, saw it all. Down Fifth, the buildings put it in a frame. Aboard the ferry -- we felt awful small. I didn't look until I felt the flame. The steel turns red, the framework starts to go Jacks clasp Jills’ hands and step onto the sky. The noise was not like anything you know. Stand still, he said, and watch a building die. There's no one you can help above this floor. We've got to hold our breath. We've got to climb. Don't give me that; I did this once before. The firemen look up, and know the time. These labored, took their

My friends all made it, and that's why I cry.He stayed with me, and he died anyway.We almost tipped the island toward uptown.Next minute, I'm in Macy's. Who knows how. I really need to get this bagel down.He'd haul ass, that's what Jesus would do now. A fighter plane? Dear God, let it be ours. We're scared of bombs and so we're loading guns. Who didn't have a rude word for the towers? The world's hip-deep in junk that mattered once. Hands rise to heaven as asbestos falls. The air is yellow, hideously thick. A photo, private once, on fifty walls .A candle in a teacup on a brick.They found -- can you believe -- a pair of hands. Oh, that don't hurt. Well, maybe just a bit. The Winter Garden's shattered but it stands. A howl is Mene Tekeled in the grit. Some made it in a basement, so there's hope. The following are definitely

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wages, and are dead. The cracker-crumbs of fascia sieve the light. The air's deciduous of letterhead. How dark, how brilliant, things will be tonight. Once more, we'll all remember where we were. Forget it, friend. You didn't have a choice. That's got to be a rumor, but who's sure? The Internet is stammering with noise. You turn and turn but just can't turn away. My child can't understand. I can't explain. The towers drain out from Boston to LA. The cellphone is our ganglion of pain.What was I thinking of? What did I say?You're safe? The TV's off. What do you mean? I'm going now, but not going away.I couldn't touch the answering machine.I nearly was, but caught a later bus. I would have been, but had this awful cold.I spoke with her, she's headed home, don't fuss. Pick up those tools. The subway job's on hold. Somebody's got to pay, no matter what.I love you. Just I love you. Just I love --The cloud rolls on; I think of Eliot. Not silence, but an emptiness above. There's dust, and metal. Nothing else at all.it's airless and it's absolutely black. I found a wallet. I'm afraid to call. I'll stay until my little girl comes back.You hold your breath whenever something shakes. St. Vincent's takes one massive trauma case. The voice, so placid, till the circuit breaks. Ten minutes just to grab stuff from my place .I only want to hear them say goodbye. They could be down there, buried, couldn't they?

known . . .You live, is how you learn that you can cope. Yes, I sincerely want to be alone.Don't even ask. That's what your tears are for. The cats are in a shelter; we are not.Pedestrians rule the Roeblings' bridge once more. A memory of home is what we've got. Tribeca with no people, that's plain wrong. It's just a shopping bag, but who can tell? Okay, okay, I'm moving right along. The postcards hit two dollars, and they sell. Be honest, now. You're proud of living here. If this is Armageddon, make it quick. Today, for you, the rose is free, my dear. We're shooting down our neighbors. Now I'm sick. I can't do that for fifty times the fare. A coronary. Other things went on.It goes, like, something mighty, and despair. All those not now accounted for are gone. Here is the man whose god blinked in the flash, Whose god says sinful people should be hurt, The man whose god is kneeling in the ash, The man whose god is dancing on the dirt. Okay, I ate at Windows now and then. This fortune-teller went to Notre Dame? They knocked 'em down. We'll stack 'em up again. Oh, I'd say one or two things stayed the same.Some nights I still can see them, like a ghost. King Kong was right about the Empire State. I'd rather not hear what you'll miss the most. A taller building? Maybe. I can wait. I hugged the stranger sitting next to me. So this is what you call a second chance. One turn aside, into eternity.This is New York. We'll find a place to dance.

With resolution wanting, reason runsTo characters and symbols, noughts and ones.

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Things I wish I knew/Things I don’t really want to know

Throughout the novel, Oskar comments on the both the things he know but wishes he didn’t and things he wishes he knew. For example, on page 1, Oskar says, “I wonder if everyone’s hearts would start to beat at the same, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don’t really want to know about.”

Throughout the unit, we will be giving you time in class to revisit this notetaker as it may be one of the places where you find inspiration to create a larger narrative piece.

In the organizer below, create your own list of “Things you wish you knew” and “Things you know, but don’t really want to know.

Things I Wish I Knew Things I Know, but Don’t Really Want to Know About

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Personal TimelineBegin by drawing a line horizontally on the strip of paper you have been given. On the far right put a dot and write the year of your birth, on the far left put a dot and write the current year.

On the top side of this timeline, identify the POSITIVE key historical/social/cultural events that gave your life shape and meaning.

On the timeline itself identify NEUTRAL events

On the bottom side of the timeline, identify the NEGATIVE key events in your life— For POSITIVE NEUTRAL AND NEGATIVE you may choose to illustrate these historical/social/cultural events with appropriate images

Remember the higher you go the more POSITIVE and the lower you go the more NEGATIVE.

Here are some tips for succeeding on this assignment:

● Do some careful thinking about the key historical/cultural/social events that  have shaped—this is hard to do! Think back in your life about the larger events that shaped yours and your family's circumstances—especially your beliefs, opinions values/practices.

Here are some online timelines that you may (or may not) find useful: timeline for the Internet <http://info.isoc.org/internet/history/>; timeline for American news, lifestyle, and souns <http://archer2000.tripod.com/index.html>; timeline of Black history <http://blackhistory.eb.com/>; timeline of computing history <http://www.computer.org/computer/timeline/>; Chinese American timeline <http://www.itp.berkeley.edu/~asam121/timeline.html>.

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Stuff That Happened to Me...

Goal: Students will respond to a weekly prompt either generated by the teachers, or directly from the book and write about a life event that has affected them to create a “Stuff That Happened to Me” book modeled after Oskar’s. Students will also be matching meaningful images to emphasize and enhance their written work. This could take the Final Form of a Digital Journal, A Scrapbook, A Dairy etc.Teacher Note:(we will create exemplars for students)

Rationale: Students will be reflecting on experiences that have impacted their lives through weekly writing prompts. By doing so, students will deepen their understanding of themselves and the book by reflecting on quotes and their own life experiences.

Materials: Ideally, computers to create a digital journal. If not, Paper, EL & IC text, art supplies, binding materials

Process: 1. Discuss Oskar’s “ Stuff That Happened to Me” book: Googolplex p 46-67. Why

do you think he includes each piece? How might each piece have influenced him?

2. Handout instructions3. Create books (Possible workshop with artist)4. Throughout the unit, students will be responding to prompts (both teacher

selected and student generated), writing a weekly entry, and electing a visual artifact to enhance their written work. Students will share a portion of their entries with the classroom community.

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5. Using events from your Narrative Timeline, list 10 things that happened to you. Be sure you have an equal mix of positive and negative.

Handout:

Throughout the quarter, we will be creating a multi-media journal inspired by Oskar’s “Stuff That Happened to Me” book. Some entries will be memoir pieces about events on your personal timeline. Others will be similar to Oskar’s in that they may be about events that directly affect you or events that are not directly connect to you (the shark attacking the girl or the decapitated soldier. Regardless of the direct or indirect nature of the event, Oskar includes them in his book and shares his feelings on the subject.

Your task throughout the quarter is to write a weekly entry in your “Stuff That Happened to Me” book. For each entry you will include an image or visual artifact to represent each event. You may choose an image from the internet, personal photos, or create your own symbol. Be ready to share your journal entries with the classroom community.

Inquiry Circles

Adapted from Edmund Burke Feldman’s How to Read a Visual

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● Begin by having students/teachers put an quote/issue/event in the center circle.

● Let students “react” to the prompt and write those in the next circle● Help students distinguish between reaction and thought-and how to

turn reactions into thoughts write those in the next circle● Based on the thoughts create questions and write those in the next

circle● Write possible answers to the question/s in the next circle● **You may end the process here-or repeat with from the answer

develop another question and another answer etc.● In the outer circle take action-stake a claim based on your answer-

answers demand actions!

Craft Lesson: Hashtag into Evidence Paragraph

Thanks to Maurice Cowley and Tara Jardine from the 2015 OWP Summer Institute for this lesson.

1. Begin by asking students, “What is a hashtag? How are they used?” You may look

at some sample hashtags if students aren’t familiar.

2. Select a quote or image from your work together and place it on the document

camera. Ask students to generate a hashtag for the prompt. Explain that this is part

of the process you will work through together. You might show the attached models

to students.

3. On large pieces of chart paper, students draw three circles in the form of a bullseye.

4. Each group selects a quotation that they think is the most important (relevant to

the essential questions) based on their individual selections in their reading

journals, articles, etc. Students write the quotation in the inner circle on a large

piece of chart paper

5. With each group’s chart paper hanging on the wall, students walk around adding

hashtags in the first circle on the chart paper. These hashtags should capture the gist

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of the quote, theme of the quotation. Then ask students to walk around and discuss

which hashtags they think are most effective. (See sample below.)

6. Bring the class back together. Return to your original quote (#2) and ask students

to pull the quote into a sentence. (See model) Ask students to partner share or small

group share. Ask a few students to share with the large group to make sure

everyone has a common understanding of the next step.

7. Once students return to the hallway, ask students to write sentences in response

to the hashtags and quotations. Tell them to write on at least three sheets.

8. Once students have written on a few hashtag posters, return once again to the

large group. The last step is to write a paragraph using one of the quotations,

hashtags and sentences as the evidence for their paragraph. Before students write

their evidence paragraph, brainstorm together the elements of an evidence

paragraph: What is in an evidence paragraph:

Claim

Support Evidence

Interpretation/Analysis

Quote

Context

(See “Raising the bones of an evidence paragraph”.)

Students write a practice paragraph with the classroom model. (#2) Students

partner or small group share and pop up share a few paragraphs in class. (See

model below.)

9. Ask students return to hashtag posters, find a quote, hashtag, and sentence they 34

want to develop into a paragraph. Once students complete their paragraphs, share

in small groups or post on the wall next to the hashtag posters.

Three-Voice Poem From your reading, choose three characters that might argue, discuss or dialogue. Create a discussion between the trio. Let them speak in authentic voices. Pair with a partner and work together to create a three-voice poem. Choose three characters from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Improvise a dialogue/argument between these characters. After you get the idea about what the dialogue sounds like, write it in draft form. Without using names, lay it out so that it’s clear when the voices change.

Three-Voice Poem Notetaker

Use the notetaker below to organize quotes and ideas to begin creating a dialogue.

Character 1: Character 2: Character 3:

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**MODEL AND CREATE A THREE-VOICE POEM WITH A TEXT THEY KNOW.

Examples: The Vicar and The Teacher from I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Maxx Nanson, student The clouds are a light gray,the normal but beautiful color of Kingcome sky. The clouds are ominous and dreary,I grow tired of this place. Rain starts to fall,as much a part of me as my own arms.

Rain starts to fall,reflecting my somber mood.

The air is cold,feeling clean, fresh, and new.

The air is coldand I put on my jacket longing for the warm summer days of my old home.

Soon the children will visit me,so innocent and curious.

Soon the children will visit me,I grow tired of their blank, expressionless faces.

I respect the culture,and don’t force my beliefs.

I am a teacher,and they will learn English.

Life in Kingcome is simple,it makes a man realize what his place in life is all about. Life in Kingcome is boring,no man should ever have to come here.

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I am an outsider, for I can never truly be a part of themI am an outsider, for I will never be one of them.

Honeybees from Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman

Being a bee Being a bee is a joy.is a pain. I’m a queenI’m a workerI’ll glad explain. I’ll glad explain. Upon rising, I’m fed by my royal attendants,I’m up at dawn, guardingthe hive’s narrow entrance I’m bathedthen I take outthe hive’s morning trash then I’m groomed.then I put in an hourmaking wax,without two minutes’ timeto sit still and relax. The rest of my day is quite simply set forth:Then I might collect nectarfrom the fieldthree miles north I lay eggs,or perhaps I’m onlarva detail by the hundred.feeding the grubsin their cells,wishing that I were stillhelpless and pale. I’m loved and I’m lauded,

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I’m outranked by none.Then I pack combs withpollen—not my idea of fun. When I’ve done enough layingThen, weary, I strive I retireto patch up any cracksin the hive for the rest of the day.Then I build some new cells,slaving away atenlarging this Hell,dreading the sightof another sunrise,wondering why we don’tall unionize.Truly, a bee’s is the Truly, a bee’s is theworst bestof all lives. of all lives.

Lesson from OWP Reading & Writing Strategies 2015

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Evidence Wall: Emerging Themes & Issues

To help students understand how to build essays based on their own passions and interests, we will build an “Emerging Theme Wall” as we read. During class discussions, when a student makes an excellent point, the teacher might say, “Let’s put that on the theme and issue wall.” For example, during a discussion about the main character in If We Must Die, Tiara talked about how the maid, Ivory, pushed Berneen’s understanding of her role to combat racism as a white woman. Tiara created a sentence strip: “Berneen’s awareness around racism is pushed by black characters.”

Collecting Evidence:

1. At the end of a class discussion about a scene in the play, students get in small groups and create sentence strips with themes that they see emerging or ideas they want to follow in their dialogue journals. Some of these will not bear fruit. This is a good real life lesson: Sometimes our original ideas need to be tweaked, amended, or abandoned as we read deeper into a novel, history, or science.

2. Stop the class regularly to collect quotes, arguments and insights on sticky notes and place them under the appropriate theme. In this way, students collect evidence (with page numbers) along the way, instead of flipping back through the play at essay writing time.

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Heavy Boots and Light Boots

Throughout the novel, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Oskar refers to having heavy and light boots to illustrate his emotional state:

“I had thought about giving it to Sonny, the homeless person who I sometimes see standing outside the Alliance Francaise, because he puts me in heavy boots” (35).

“ A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don’t know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter” (11).

Think about things that make your boots heavy and things that help to make your boots lighter. In the notetaker, identify experiences, events, people, sounds, words, songs, places, ANYTHING that makes your boots heavier or lighter.

Heavy Boots Light Boots

Cranes (Light Boots) & Boots (Heavy Boots)

1. Read the story of Sadako40

2. Fold your Origami paper into a crane. 3. Origami crane tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Ux1ECrNDZl4&safe=active4. Choose one thing that makes your boots lighter and write it on a small strip

of paper. Attach it to your crane.5. Fold your paper into a boot.6. Origami boot tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09-W98l6yPw7. Choose one thing that makes your boots heavy and write it on a small strip of

paper. Attach it to your boot.8. Choose one thing that makes your boots heavy and write it on a small strip of

paper. Attach it to your boot.9. Hang your crane and boot with the rest of the installation (cafeteria, library or

other public space).

The Story of Sadako

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Sadako Sasaki was a Japanese girl living in Hiroshima when the atomic

bomb was dropped on Japan (August 6, 1945). In 1955, at age 11, Sadako was diagnosed with

leukemia, a type of cancer caused by the atomic bomb. [Photo from wikipedia.com]

While in the hospital, Sadako started to fold paper cranes. In Japan, there is a belief that if you

folded 1000 paper cranes, then your wish would come true. Sadako spend 14 months in the

hospital, folding paper cranes with whatever paper she could get. Paper was scarce so she

used the paper from medicine bottles, candy wrappers, and left over gift wrap paper. Her wish

was that she would get well again, and to attain peace & healing to the victims of the world.

Sadako died on October 25, 1955, she was 12 years old and had folded over 1300 paper

cranes. Sadako’s friends and classmates raised money to build a memorial in honor of Sadako

and other atomic bomb victims. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial was completed in 1958 and has

a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane. At the base is a plaque that says:

This is our cry.

This is our prayer.

Peace in the world.

Although Sadako died at a very young age, her legacy continues. To this day, the paper crane

is probably the most recognized origami model. The paper crane is often given as a wish for

peace.

Sadako's brother (Masahiro Sasaki), who is now over 70 years old, saved five of the original

paper cranes folded by his sister when she was in the hospital. He hopes to donate the

remaining 5 cranes to the the five continents of the world.

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Sept 22, 2012: One of the original paper cranes folded by

Sadako was donated to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii. It

is hoped "that Japan and the United States can overcome

resentment and animosity over the war and strengthen their

relationship."

Sept 13, 2009: One of the original paper cranes folded by

Sadako was given as a gift to the Tribute WTC Visitor Center in

New York City. It is hoped that the fingernail-sized crane will

remind us of a little girl's wish for world peace. Masahiro says,

"people from all over the world will see the crane that Sadako

folded, and will desire peace."

1990: In Seattle, Washington, USA, Nobel Peace Prize

nominee, Dr. Floyd Schmoe, built a life-size statue of Sadako.

The statue was unveiled on August 6, 1990, 45 years after the

bombing of Hiroshima. The statue is in the Seattle Peace Park

and often has paper cranes draped over it. [Photo from

wikipedia.com]

Article from:

http://www.origami-resource-center.com/sadako.html

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Business Card a la Oskar Schell

On his business card, Oskar illustrates his identity through inspirations, beliefs, inspirations, and collections.

1. Brainstorm a list of your own descriptors (talents, hobbies, loves, hates, inspirations, aspirations, beliefs).

2. Create a your own card.3. Display your business card on the theme wall.

Character Biological Index Cards a la Mr. Black

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Character cards

On page 156-58, we are introduced to Mr. Black’s biographical index (card catalogue) which contains potentially hundreds of thousands of cards with a person’s name and a “one-word biography”.

1. For each main character and 5 minor characters in the novel, create a card with their name and a one-word biography.

Main Characters

OskarMomDadGrandma

GrandpaAnnaMr. A.R. BlackStan

Abby BlackWilliam Black

2. Choose 5 minor characters and create a card for each of them.3. Display your card on the Character Theme Wall4. Exit paragraph: Consider the pros and cons to Oskar and Mr Black’s approach to business cards. What does each approach say or not say about each character?

Loud and Close Visuals- A Thematic GalleryWhat about the book is loud?What about the book is close?

Can you be loud and close at the same time?What does loud mean anyway?

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And what does close mean anywho?

How do we visualize a theme or a concept or an idea?

Using what we know about the many themes in the book (think of our theme wall) we will create a visual wall of themes that represent the dualities and

similarities of loud and close.

Here is what to do:

Pick a theme that is loud in the book and find a visual to represent it.Pick a theme that is close in the book and find a visual to represent it.

Per esempio, which is Italian for for example, which I know about:

My loud theme is needing family no matter how dysfunctional we and they are

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My close theme is how we hurt ourselves and others we love

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Creating and Using A Personal Narrative TimelineContent:  You are to write a narrative describing how an event or person (or both) helped shape and influence you, or someone else you know, as a person.  Your narrative should center around one remembered event and/or one remembered person.  It should not be several small anecdotes (stories) combined into one, although you may refer to these in your narrative. You may include places, ideas, vacations, mentors, events, school experiences, teachers, family, friends, or anything else from your past that has helped shape you as a person.  You will want to make sure that your narrative is engaging and centers around a conflict. Be sure to make clear through character and dialogue how the people and event changed you in some way. Tell your story dramatically and vividly, and remember to give the significance of your narrative as well.

Format:  This essay must be at least 1000 words, hand-written or computer-generated, double-spaced.  Please secure your final draft with a paper clip, rather than a staple. Thank you.   

Peer Review date:

Due Date:

Directions:

For this class, you will compose a personal narrative with the primary purposes of: 1) examining and reflecting on the people experiences and events that have shaped and influenced you as a person; 2.) placing these stories, people and events (and values) into some sort of narrative context so that you and others can better understand the relationships between who you are through what you have experienced

The definition of narrative we are using for this class is a story that has or could have happened to a real person.

The audience for your Narrative is me and and the other people in this class.Create a timeline of your life—online or on paper (e.g., poster- board(s), a homemade book, a scroll)—noting key dates in your life.

Begin by drawing a line horizontally on the strip of paper you have been given. On the far right put a dot and write the year of your birth, on the far left put a dot and write the current year.

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On the top side of this timeline, identify the POSITIVE key historical/social/cultural events that gave your life shape and meaning.

On the timeline itself identify NEUTRAL events

On the bottom side of the timeline, identify the NEGATIVE key events in your life— For POSITIVE NEUTRAL AND NEGATIVE you may choose to illustrate these historical/social/cultural events with appropriate images

Remember the higher you go the more POSITIVE and the lower you go the more NEGATIVE.

Here are some tips for succeeding on this assignment:

● Do some careful thinking about the key historical/cultural/social events that  have shaped—this is hard to do! Think back in your life about the larger events that shaped yours and your family's circumstances—especially your beliefs, opinions values/practices.

Here are some online timelines that you may (or may not) find useful: timeline for the Internet <http://info.isoc.org/internet/history/>; timeline for American news, lifestyle, and souns <http://archer2000.tripod.com/index.html>; timeline of Black history <http://blackhistory.eb.com/>; timeline of computing history <http://www.computer.org/computer/timeline/>; Chinese American timeline <http://www.itp.berkeley.edu/~asam121/timeline.html>.

Below, you will find a copy of the Personal Narrative Autobiography questions you may find helpful in creating your Timeline. Remember as we start this today we will take time in future classes to add to it-the timeline marches on!

To compose the narrative, look at the questions below and answer each of them in writing—responding as fully and completely as possible. Then begin placing them using either images or “shorthand” On your timeline.

Personal Narrative “Autobiography” Questions: ● Name: ● Your place and date of birth: ● Academic Major (if applicable): ● Intended Occupation (if applicable): ● Nationality: ● Race: ● Ethnic Heritage: ● Religion/denomination (optional): ● Immediate family members and ages: ● How would you describe your family economic circumstances when you were growing

up? (e.g., we had very little money, we were comfortable, we were well off, we were extremely well off)

● Parents’/Guardians’ Education and Professions:● What is your very first memory?● Of joy● Of struggle● Of fear● Of success● Of failure

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● Of embarrassment● Of pride ● What values and beliefs did your learn from your parents/grandparents/guardians? At

home? At school? What were their thoughts about education? ● What stories did they tell you about you?● About your family and relatives? ● Who helped you? Hindered you? (include personal computers, computer games,

etc.).● What are your happiest memories?● What are the stories you tell about yourself to people you know well? To people you

don’t know well?● What are the most important event and stories and people in your life from the ages

of 5 to 10?● From 10 to 15?● From 15 to now? ● What important historical/political/social events were happening in your state,

country, or around the world when you were a child growing up? When you were a teenager? Please list as many of these as possible

● What important family events happened when you were a child growing up? When● you were a teenager? Please list as many of these as possible. ● Who were your heroes when you were a young child? An older child? An adolescent?

Possible Prompts

Who/what makes your brain quiet?On page 12, Oskar says, “I loved having a dad who was smarter than the New York Times and I loved how my cheek could feel the hairs on his chest through his T-shirt, and I loved how he always smelled like shaving, even at the end of the day. Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn’t have to invent a thing.” Who or what in your world makes your brain quiet?

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InventionsOskar creates numerous inventions throughout the novel. Creating inventions to quiet the brain

Counting Lies & Counting Disappointments

Oskar’s InventionsChoose one and write about how the invention might change the world.

Extremely Bright and Incredibly FunnyConsider the title of the book, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. If you were to write a story of your own journey, how might you title it?

Extremely ________________ & Incredibly __________________Happily _________________ & Annoyingly ___________________Hungrily ________________ & Gracefully ___________________

Choose 2 adverbs and 2 adjectives to create your title. Please explain why the title represents your life.

Personal Narrative Criteria Sheet

Literary Elements: Mark each of these elements on your draft. If you have a highlighter or colored pencils, color each of the elements with a different color. If not, put the number of the element in the margin of your paper. For example, every time you use dialogue put #1 in the margin next to it. (The elements marked * are not essential, but give your writing more depth.)

___ 1. DialogueWhat are the characters saying?Do they each have a “voice print?”

___ 2. BlockingWhat are the characters doing while they are talking? Leaning against a wall? Tossing a ball in the air?

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Where are they located?

___ 3. Character DescriptionWhat does the character look like? Smell like? What is the character wearing? Can we tell the character’s age?Is the character bossy? Shy? Rowdy?

___ 4. Setting DescriptionWhere does the story take place? What does it look like?Smell like? What’s on the walls?

___ 5. Figurative Language*Did you use metaphors and similes — comparisons?Did you use personification — giving human qualities to non-humans?

___ 6. Interior monologue*What is going on inside the character’s head? What is the character thinking while the action is happening?

___ 7. Flashback* This is fancy stuff. Does the character remember a time when…?

___8.Conflict What’s the problem or problems in the story?

___9. Meaning/What’s the lesson learned Why are you writing this? Why are we reading this? So what?

Deepak Chopra

In the unit we will be using selected pieces of Deepak Chopra’s The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire

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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CC0QtwIwAmoVChMI3aqD1rG4xwIVxZaICh34OQSr&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DhkJb7Sg-8N0&ei=gCnWVd3qDcWtogT485DYCg&usg=AFQjCNFJ9DUijwj48ChokGbcx04GxdfGWw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkJb7Sg-8N0

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The pieces we will be using from the book are:

Healing Childhood Anger:Exercise 10 page 231(link to Healing a Historic or Personal Trauma) Dealing With Pain:Exercise 8 page 223Dealing with Duality : Exercise 3 page 193The 4th Insight:Page 283

Wall of Thesis Statements From the writing of Linda Christensen . . .For years, I pushed students to write their thesis statements before they collected their evidence. This was a mistake. Statements didn’t fit their facts. They sounded great but couldn’t find any purchase once students started writing. Now, I wait until after students collect information to work on developing a thesis statement.

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I explain that a strong thesis statement is essential for writing a strong essay because:· It provides a roadmap for the writer by stating what the essay will prove. It answers the question: What is this essay about? · The thesis statement is more than a statement of the topic — language and power. It defines the writer’s interpretation of a specific aspect of language and power, for example, how language played out in Native American boarding schools and what the student thinks about that. · A strong thesis helps the writer shape the essay by clarifying its topic and its stance: What do you think about language and power? What is your perspective on the topic? It also helps the writer weed evidence; it clarifies what the essay is not about and what evidence is not relevant. I also point out that the thesis statement is typically somewhere in the first paragraph of the essay and clues the reader in on the point of the essay and that it can be stated explicitly or implicitly. I don’t get rule-driven about this, telling students that it must include three parts or certain kinds of phrasing. I want them to get the gist of a thesis statement. I used to get too technical, and I lost students and myself. And, as a writer, I frequently have a working thesis or direction, then adapt and change it along the way. I write my way to understanding. I bring in drafts of my writing and hang them on the wall to demonstrate this. After we go over the mission of the thesis statement, I tell students to write one or two drafts of potential statements for their essay. Once most students have at least one statement, I tell them, “Share your thesis statements with a partner. I want you to think about what your friend is trying to prove. Is it clear? Is there evidence for it? Once you’ve helped each other, revise your sentence if your partner was confused. Then select your ‘best’ statement and write it on this strip of paper or blackboard.” During this time, I travel furiously around the room, noting great sentences, and some that provide teaching points — too broad, too narrow, not enough evidence.After all students have their thesis statements (without names) on the wall, we walk around the room discussing each statement. Now, even if I had a document projec- tor or a working overhead with transparencies, I would still use this method as least once or twice a year. Students get out of their chairs. We walk around the room in a huddle of humanity as we discuss thesis statements. I start by saying, “As you know, I don’t spell everything correctly and neither do other people, so there’s no need to point out when someone has misspelled a word or two. We’re looking for clarification about thesis statements, not spelling and grammar.” I herd them to a couple of promising statements, pause, and ask questions. For example, in the thesis statement, “When it came to the character Janie in Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, skin color did not matter.” I ask, “What has the writer promised to prove?” As students make suggestions, I underline the key phrases. For this statement, the writer has to prove that skin color did not matter to Janie. “Can the writer back up this thesis? What evidence would you suggest?” After students discuss Mrs. Turner’s “color struck” attitude and compare it to Janie’s attitude, we decide that the writer has enough evidence. I also ask, “Can this statement be improved? How?” It is not necessary to visit every thesis, but we visit enough for students to gain clarity about what promises they’ve made.

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I never humiliate students in this process. When I see very weak thesis statements, I note them so I can work with those students individually. I do find problematic or overstated thesis statements to discuss because I want students to learn how to narrow or refocus. Sometimes these statements help students clarify their understandings or misunderstandings of the novel or unit. Take, for example, this statement: “Janie, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, is fascinated by wealth and power in her youth, and later finds that it truly cannot make up for a deficiency in pas- sion.” The first part seemed off to me, so I asked the class, “Is Janie fascinated by wealth and power? Where do you see that? I don’t see Janie as fascinated. Her grandmother believes property and wealth is necessary to help black women, but Janie is concerned about passion and love.” The class argued. Michael disagreed. He found the quote about Janie’s first vision of Joe as proof that she was struck by the way he dressed. “It was a citified, stylish dressed man with his hat set at an angle that didn’t belong in these parts. His coat was over his arm, but he didn’t need it to represent his clothes. The shirt with the silk sleeve-holders was dazzling enough for the world.” These conversations push students (and me) to return to the text, to make sure they can prove their points, but also to see that they need to convince the reader with evidence. When students return to their seats, I ask them to revise their thesis statements. I type up a few of the best thesis statements at the end of the day to distribute so students have models if they get stuck. I use this method once or twice during the year to help students develop a solid thesis, but any strategy needs follow-up. Unlike movie teaching, I don’t teach a lesson once, and everyone gets it. I circle back, re-teach in one- on-one sessions, and figure out a different way to approach it and re-teach it again later in the year. Sometimes the cloudy thesis is not a problem with writing, it is a problem with thinking. The student lacks clarity on the topic and needs to talk or write more to gain a clearer understanding of the points they want to make.

CLOSING ACTS56

Final Portfolio Requirements for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Congratulations and welcome to your “Final” for this class! You will have three days to compile, assemble, design, reflect and present to us your DIGITAL or ANALOG portfolio. Don’t worry, if you are current with all of your class assignments you have done 90% percent of the work for this already. Now it is time to begin…

● Decide if you are going to do this digitally or non-digitally or maybe a little of both.

● Using the guidelines below decide what will be in your “portfolio”● Your portfolio will show us your work and thoughts about the work you

have done around the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

● Whatever form your portfolio takes you will need to make sure it includes:

1. A cover /title page with your name 2. A table of contents with appropriate portfolio items and page numbers3. A description/rationale and a reflection of/on each of the assignments

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So what do I have to include in my Final Portfolio? ( please do consider the order of how you put yours together) Your portfolio will include:

1. The class final reflection and your assessment of assignments2. Your letter to Dr. Fleetwood3. One witness letter4. A finished /polished narrative5. An unfinished piece of writing that you struggled with6. An unfinished piece of writing you want to finish7. An artwork or visual/ “physical” 3-D work or digital 2-D work (see list of

possibilities)8. A found poem9. “Artifact” 1 of your choice 10. “Artifact” 2 of your choice11. An idea for an assignment we didn’t get to do, but you would

have liked to have done.

#7-List of Possibilities-(we will add to this in a class brainstorm)Heroic Journey Board gameKid’s BookPortland’s 6th Borough Sculpture or...Wire sculpture of Zoo/AnimalIllustrations of Characters, Settings, Events…PodcastVideo of chapterPhoto EssayPhoto montageInstagram account for a characterFl Book of Letters and ResponsesVisual Narratives of chaptersObject Self-PortraitsOskar’s (or another character’s) Instagram feedCharacter PlaylistsPersonal Instagrams and playlists

For the rationale and description of the items in your portfolio explain why you chose the item, other than it was required, and what the assignment was that generated the work. Consider telling the story of the work.

For the reflection of the work consider these questions:Are you proud of it, what did you learn from doing it, was it easy, a struggle-was it worth doing? So what? And as always explain everything.

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From the desk of M. Fleetwood Superintendent of Silver Springs School District, Illinois

cc. Stevie Nicks, Principal, Silver Springs High SchoolLindsey Buckingham, Chair SSSD School Board

Subject: Concerns from the Silver Springs School Board about the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close being taught to students.

Dear Mr. Frampton and Ms. Benatar,

First of all, thanks for all of the work you do for our students. Secondly, as you read this please remember, don’t kill the messenger.

It has come to my attention, by way of our school board, that you have and are currently teaching the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I have been asked by our School Board to relay to you this message:“After having reviewed the book we feel it is not appropriate for our students to read this as a part of their English Language Arts curriculum during their education in the Silver Springs School District.”

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I request that even if you are currently teaching this book, you honor our School Board’s request and immediately cease the unit. No longer will we use this book as a part of our curriculum.

Here are the reasons we feel this is a reasonable request:

First the main character, Oskar Shell, is a dangerous example/model of a human being to present to our students. What’s more, he is a foul-mouthed- irreverent liar, a bad son and grandson, extremely obstinate and defiant just to be defiant.The voice of Oskar is disrespectful of authority, crass for no other reason than to be crass and has no authentic/valuable insights or real credibility into the human condition.

And, as if that is not enough, towards the end of the novel he breaks into a cemetery and defiles the grave of his own father, a recent victim of the 9/11 tragedy.Much of the book centers on Oskar’s grandparents’ sexual relationships and their dysfunctional relationship with each other. This is not appropriate for teenagers to be reading about or really for anyone of any age. It is gratuitous and graphic and borders on being pornographic.

As far as being well written, the book models for our students poor Standard White English and is gimmicky in its use of pictures and numbers, entire pages are blurred or blanked and there is even a flip-book which celebrates the 9/11 tragedy.

The book also questions our heroic and necessary bombing of Hiroshima and dares equate the US’s actions in Dresden during WWII with the terrorist atrocities of the 9/11 attacks. This is historically inaccurate, patriotically indefensible, as well as Anti-American.

It is for these reasons that we demand you cease and desist from teaching this novel. Once again we appreciate all the work you do for our students here in the Silver Springs School District in our great state of Illinois, the Land of Lincoln.

Should you have any concerns comments or questions please do not hesitate to contact me at m_wood@sssd.k12.or.usor call me at ex.8675309

Respectfully,

Dr. M. Fleetwood

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Name: ________End of the Unit Reflection

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

In your own words tell us what your most significant “take away” was from reading this book: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What was the most significant issue or event in the book and what was your perspective on that issue?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Give me one specific example from your story that demonstrates your perspective on the issue or event. (Find the direct quote/passage from your story)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Over the course of the unit is there something you would like to see us do more or less of? This is your opportunity to let us know what might be interesting for you to learn about.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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____________________________________________________________________________________________

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In this unit we have used a variety of strategies to support your learning of the designated targets. From the list below select the two things that supported your learning the best and describe to us how they supported your learning.

Think-Pair Share Individual ReadingsLooking at Authors Strategies Paired ReadingsTalking to the Text Small Group Readings

Jigsaw (Small groups reading only Round Robin Reflection on writing parts of text) Historical DocumentsEditing Checklist Read AloudsAdult Editing Golden LinesPeer Editing Citing Evidence from the textScoring Rubrics Two/Three Column Note-takers Cooperative Learning Strips AnnotationsTurn and Talk Class DiscussionsGive one Get One Theme WallSentence Strips

Strategy #1: _____________How did it support my learning? (Be Specific) ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Strategy #2: _____________How did it support my learning? (Be Specific) ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This unit we have written on variety of topics and in a variety of genres. From the list below select the two things that you were most interested in learning/writing about and tell us why?

Found Poems Descriptive LanguageDialogues Free writes Witness Letters Argumentative EssayHistorical Fictions NarrativesJournals/Diaries Lessons on the craft of writing

Three Voice Poems Guided/Text based writing promptsAnnotated writing prompts

Topic #1: _________Why?- ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Topic #2: _________Why?- ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Resources64

9/11 Witness Accounts

Neil DeGrasse Tyson Wednesday, September 12, 2001, 10:00 AM

First-hand account of the WTC attacks and subsequent evacuation from Lower Manhattan residence. A heavily forwarded e-mail that became the subject of an article in the Wall Street Journal a week later on the widespread use of the web to communicate the tragic news of the day.

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My entire family is safe. We evacuated our lower-Manhattan residence at about noon yesterday and migrated north on foot to Grand Central Terminal (about three miles) where we took Metro North to the home of my parents in Westchester, from where I write this message.

We live four blocks from the World Trade Center, in view of both Towers, City Hall, and City Hall Park. I happened to be working at home yesterday. My wife went to work at 8:20AM. I left at the same time to vote in NYC's Mayoral Primary. My 9-month old son was at home with our nanny. My 5-year old daughter was attending her second day of Kindergarten at PS-234, three blocks from World Trade Center. Lineup time in the yard was 8:40AM in full view of WTC 1.

When the first plane hit at 8:50, they evacuated the school without incident. I noticed WTC 1 on fire in a high floor upon returning from voting, about 8:55AM. Large crowds of onlookers were gathering along the base of City Hall Park as countless fire engines, police cars, and ambulances screamed past.

I went home, grabbed my camcorder, went out to the street and started filming. I consider myself to be emotionally strong. What I bore witness to, however, was especially upsetting, with indelible images of horror that will not soon leave my mind.

1) I first see WTC 1 on fire at a high floor. Not just flames coming out of some windows, but four or five entire floors on fire with smoke penetrating floors still higher.

Upsetting enough, but then...

2) Among the papers and melted steel fragments fluttering to the ground, I notice that some debris was falling distinctly differently. These weren't parts of the building that were falling. These were people, jumping from the windows, their bodies tumbling in rapid descent from the eightieth floor. I noticed about ten such falls, morbidly capturing three of them on tape.

Upsetting enough, but then...

3) A fiery explosion burst forth from a corner of WTC 2 about two thirds of the way up, perhaps the 60th floor. The fireball created an intense radiative impulse of heat from which we all had to turn our heads. From my vantage point, I could not see the plane that caused it, which hit 180 degrees on the other side of the building. Nor did I know at the time that a plane caused it. I first thought it was a bomb, but the explosion was not accompanied by the tell-tale acoustic shockwave that rattles windows. This was simply a low frequency rumble.

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As it burst from the building's corner, the fireball was so large that it extended all the way across to WTC 1. The fact the building's corner exploded tells me that the ignited jet fuel got focused by the sides of the floor into which the second plane flew, meeting at the corner with increased explosive pressure. The flames were accompanied by countless thousands of sheets of paper that burst forth, fluttering to the ground as though every filing cabinet on multiple floors was emptied.

The fact that the second tower was now on fire made it clear to us all on the street that the first fire was no accident and that the WTC complex was under terrorist attack. Morbidly, I have the explosion on tape and the sounds from the horrified crowd surrounding me. At this point I stopped filming, and went back inside my apartment.

Upsetting enough, but then…

4) As more and more and more and more and more emergency vehicles descended on the World Trade Center, I hear a second explosion in WTC 2, then a loud, low-frequency rumble that precipitates the unthinkable—a collapse of all the floors above the point of explosion. First the top surface, containing the helipad, tips sideways in full view. Then the upper floors fall straight down in a demolition-style implosion, taking all lower floors with it, even those below the point of the explosion. A dense, thick dust cloud rises up in its place, which rapidly pours through the warren of streets that cross lower Manhattan.

I close all our windows and blinds. As the dust cloud engulfs my building, an eerie darkness surrounded us—the kind of darkness you experience before a severe thunderstorm. I look out the window and can see no more than about 12 inches away.

Upsetting enough, but then...

5) Outside my window, after about 15 minutes, visibility grows to about 100-yards, and I notice about an inch white dust everywhere outside my window. That's when I realize that every single rescue vehicle that had parked itself at the base of the World Trade Center must now be buried under 110 collapsed floors of tangled debris, and multiple feet of dust. This collapse took out the entire first round of rescue efforts including what were surely hundreds of police officers, firefighters, and medics.

As visibility increased and I could now see the blue sky, there was blue sky where WTC 2 used to be.

Upsetting enough, but then...

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6) I decide it's time to get my daughter, who was taken by the parents of a friend of hers to a small office building, six blocks farther from the WTC than my apartment. As I dress for survival: boots, flashlight, wet towels, swimming goggles, bicycle helmet, gloves, I hear another explosion followed by a now all-too familiar rumble that signaled the collapse of WTC 1, the first of the two towers to have been hit. I saw the iconic antenna on this building descend straight down in an implosion twinning the first.

This dust cloud was darker, thicker and faster-moving than the first. When this round of dust reached my apartment, fifteen seconds after collapse, the sky turned dark as night, with visibility of no more than about a centimeter. It was getting harder to breathe in the apartment, but we were stable.

At this point I offer no hope of survival for any of the rescue personnel who were on the scene.

Upsetting enough, but then...

7) The cloud settles once again, now leaving a total of about three inches of dust outside my window. Another dark cloud of smoke now occupies the area where two 110-story buildings once stood. This cloud, however, was not the settling kind. It was smoke from ground-level fires. At this time the air in the apartment is getting harder and harder to breathe and it becomes clear that we should evacuate—especially with the likelihood of underground gas leaks. I load up my largest backpack with survival items, put my son in our most nimble stroller and leave with our nanny, who then walks across the Brooklyn Bridge toward her home.

I go to where my daughter was held, which was upwind from all debris on a quiet street. She is in good spirits, but clearly upset. I have a crayon drawing of hers, sketched while waiting for me to arrive, which shows the Twin Towers with smoke and fire coming from them, as only a 5-year old could draw. "Daddy, why do you think the pilot drove his plane into the World Trade Center?" "Daddy, I wish this was all just a dream." "Daddy, if we can't return home tonight because of all the smoke, will my stuffed animals be okay?"

Upsetting enough, but then...

8) From the calm of an upholstered couch in the office where my daughter was kept, with my son under one arm and my daughter under the other, I realize that, fully loaded, each tower of the WTC holds 10,000 people. From what I witnessed, I have no reason to believe that any of them survived. In fact, I would not be surprised if the death toll reached 25-30,000. Beneath the Towers is an entire universe of six subterraneous levels containing scores of subway platforms, plus a hundred or so shops and restaurants. The Towers simply collapsed into this hole—a hole large enough to have

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supplied the landfill for the World Financial Center across the West Side highway from the World Trade Center.

Upsetting enough, but then...

9) I realize that if the death toll is as high as I suspect, this incident is much, much worse than Pearl Harbor, where several thousand people died. It's more spectacularly tragic than the Titanic, the Hindenburg, Oklahoma City, car bombs, and airplane hijackings. The number of deaths in one four-hour period will be nearly half of the American death toll in all of Vietnam.

I reconnected with my wife by 4PM, meeting her just north of Union Square Park, before we hiked another mile north to Grand Central Terminal for our ride to Westchester, above New York City.

I will never be the same after yesterday, in ways that I cannot foresee. I suppose that my generation now joins the ranks of those who lived through unspeakable horrors and survived to tell about it. How naive I was to believe that the world is fundamentally different from that of our ancestors, whose lives were changed by bearing witness to the 20th century's vilest acts of war.

Peace to you all

Neil deGrasse Tyson

New York City

Perspective: September 11

Adam Oestreich, Merrill Lynch employee at the World Financial Center

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September 12, 2001

I was at work when the two planes hit the Towers yesterday. My office, 2 World Financial Center, is/was on the 24th floor and faced the Towers from across West Street (the west side highway). I was at my desk when the first plane hit. We shook a bit in our seats but didn't know what happened.

I ran to the window and looked down; I thought it was a car bomb (like in 1993). I saw a parking lot that had a variety of things on fire. People started screaming about the tower (this was about 45 seconds after impact).

I ran to the other side of my office and saw fire raining down. Parts of the building was falling and on fire along with paper and other things. We had to look way up because the plane hit in the higher floors. The impact hole was huge -- it looked like 10 stories were burning. The fire seemed to crawl around the tower. The winds were so high it caused the smoke to spin in a large swirl.

It is hard to describe how the building looked from my angle. You just couldn't believe what you were seeing. At that point we didn't know exactly what happened. About a minute after the crash was reported by the news our phone started ringing. Everyone called their wives, husbands, and friends and said: "Did you see what happened?!?" "No, it wasn't us." "Yes, we know people."

I was walking around the desks at my office when the other plane hit. It felt like a big earthquake. I stumbled with the hit. People started yelling. One man in my office saw the plane go in and screamed it was another plane.

We ran again to the window. This time it was much lower in the tower and seemed worse than the first because it was so much closer to my office. People on the street could feel the fireball. My manager started yelling -- "Everybody get the fuck out! Everyone get out NOW!"

I grabbed my bag, palm pilot and my juice and headed for the stairs. 24 floors isn't that bad; they were full of people. Some were very upset, a few were panicky. We got to the winter garden (lobby) and headed out to South End Street (parallel to the river). I walked out and just saw a crowd staring up at the burning

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Towers. It was surreal this is the only word that can be used to amply describe the scene.

I stood there for a minute and watched the fire climb up, down and around the towers. I heard sudden cries from the crowd and looked up and saw people falling/jumping to their deaths. And I wish I could say there was only one. It got worse as the fire spread.

I then moved next to the marina and watched a bit more. Trying to call anyone proved almost impossible. I left messages for my immediate family and lent my phone to two guys who had to call their wives. I then started walking up the West side highway with the rest of the refugees. And I mean refugees. People carrying odd stuff crying, shaking and in total shock. I could only find 4 people from my office. Fortunately all were OK, but every got separated when we headed for the exits.

I then came upon a guy with a telescope aimed at one of the towers. The picture I will never forget. At about the 60-70th floors, people were hanging out windows trying to get air. Literally holding onto the side of the building waving a T-shirt to try to get someone's attention. I couldn't watch any longer. I kept walking, and about 10 minutes later I was about a half mile away and was talking with someone and we heard this sound that can only be described as a "thundering crack." That is the best I can do. I then saw what I thought was just a chunk of the WTC but it was actually the whole tower. I said it wasn't ... I couldn't believe it ...

With the first collapse people started running from the wall of smoke, dust and ash that erupted. The running wasn't very panicked, which helped. I then went to a car on the side of the road with about 15 other New Yorkers -- it was a true melting pot: a punk, few suits, office men and women, odd workers, truck driver, secretaries etc. That is when I learned about the Pentagon and the hijacking. Walking home I heard that "crack" again. I ran to corner to catch the second plume of smoke and debris from the second tower collapsing.

I stood there for a while in utter shock and disbelief. Then I took the long walk home. The city was closed. The streets were crowded with people and emergency vehicles and that was it.

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After walking home, I ended up rollerblading from my apartment up to my parents' place (about 5 miles). It was so quiet -- thousands of people were just walking home from everywhere, the silence was deafening. I even tried to give blood at four different locations, but they were overloaded with volunteers.

One of the hardest parts was trying to call people. Both land and cell lines were overloaded and failing. By today (12th) I was able to get in contact with most people. I finally gave blood -- it took 5.5 hours.

As of now, my office building is still standing, but I believe our windows were blown out and the office heavily damaged by debris from the collapse.

A Young Mother’s Experience

My name is Roz; I am a mother of one. I work for Silverstein Properties, Inc., the owner of several buildings in New York City, including The World Trade Center (WTC). Today is September 29, 2001, I feel normal, but I sometimes wonder if I am truly okay. I haven’t had any nightmares since the attack; I sleep and eat well, and am able to function in my normal way each day. Some people tell me that I am not okay, and that it will affect me later. Everyday I go into work; I know they are watching me to see if I break down, again I assure them, that I am fine. Afraid like everyone else? Certainly. But I am taking it one day-at-a-time. My experience was grim, and something I hope never to experience again. I sometimes wonder why I was chosen to have this experience, but I ask God to help me through this and protect my daughter and me from evil. I believe in my heart that He protects us each day, especially this day. Here’s my story:

Tuesday, September 11, 2001, began for me as any other day would. I dropped my daughter, Amanda, off at school around 8:05 am. It was Amanda’s fifth day at “big” school (as she refers to it), and it was still uncomfortable for her to let go, so I would make her separate from me outside the school instead of taking her inside, because she was afraid, and taking her in would not help matters. When we separated that morning, I remember a need filled me to see and watch her go upstairs with her classmates. So I ran to the other entrance door and snuck into the school to see her. Of course she did not know this because I hid. I watched her play and talk with her classmate, as they formed a line to follow the teacher to the breakfast room. I stood there and watched as they filed out, until I could no longer see her. I thought about why I had done that, had no answer, and proceeded to the subway, approximately 8:20 a.m.

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As I boarded the “E” train to Chambers Street there was nothing unusual. It takes 10 minutes to ride from Port Authority Station to Chambers Street Station, then another 5-7 minutes to walk from Chambers Street Station to the lobby of One WTC, and approximately 5-7 minutes to arrive on the 88th floor. It’s now approximately between 8:42 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. It was my second day back from vacation. As I enter, I see Sylvia who sits on the north side of Tower One with me, so I stopped to say hello. As we engage in small talk, it is literally about 2-3 minutes later; an explosion of great magnitude blew off the entrance door through which I had just previously walked. It knocked us both down in her cubicle. Sylvia tries to get up, because she is confused, and wants to see what is happening. I reached up and grab her clothes or hand (I’m not sure which), to pull her back down. Suddenly it calms. Everyone on the north side gathers. The room is now gray and dusty, dimly lit—most of the lights are destroyed. We gather to make sure everyone from our side is with us and okay, we turned to get the others, and we see Elaine walking toward us, her arms are spread, and she’s walking mummy-like. As she nears, we see that she is badly burned, from head to toe, her clothes are completely shredded around her, someone lets out a loud gasp, another takes his coat off and wraps it around Elaine, no words are being exchanged at the moment.

We walk over to the south side to gather more individuals; they are walking toward us. I see John Griffin, you cannot miss him, since he is 6’6” in height. He is passing out wet tissues for us to place over our noses. By the time everyone gathers, we are about 30 in number. We try to find an exit, but we are not sure where to go, it’s now about five minutes later. I took this opportunity to call my headquarters, Silverstein Properties. I got Janet on the line, I say “Jan, we just had an explosion, tell Mr. Silverstein to get us out of here!” Janet tells me a plane hit the building, and asks me to hold the line. I say, “HOLD?!” I disconnect the line and yelled that a plane hit the building. By this time some are on their radios finding out what had happened, or how to proceed. I am beginning to feel panicked because they are taking too long to make a decision as to which direction to go out.

Finally, we exit where the explosion blew off the door. There is glass everywhere, so we have to be very careful as we proceed and approach stairwell “B.” Fortunately, the lights are intact, but there is water gushing down so we must be careful and hold on. As we descend, everyone is amazingly calm; some are holding each other’s hand when necessary. Sometimes people are crying, so you look up and let them know it’s going to be okay. As we come halfway into the forties, some can no longer go, the trek is too long; some are tired, old, asthmatic or over-weight. They opt to sit and wait. I look at them and keep going. The stairwell begins to get backed-up -- too many people coming from other offices. Our group decides to head over to stairwell “C”. The door to exit stairwell “B” is locked. We now must go back up one flight of stairs and that door is unlocked, Thank God. As we descend stairwell “C”, we see the firemen coming up in their heavy uniforms carrying oxygen tanks and other equipment. They ask us to stand on the right of the steps to allow them through, we oblige.

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We can start walking again, and we come upon a stairwell landing where someone has left bottled water, we pick them up, but as more firemen come we give it to them figuring they need it more. They thank us, they stop to drink the water, and some of them are sharing the water with their comrades, I just stare at them, one is Irish with blue eyes, one is Black, and he’s talking to the others saying they still have a way to go, the other is Italian, his eyes are big and sad, and his skin is olive, he looks to be in his late 20s early 30s, and he looks afraid. There were others, but these three stand out in my mind. They thank us for the water, and tell us to put our shoes on when we get to the Mezzanine.

After a while, my thighs are trembling, and we still have some ways to go, we’re now on the 23rd floor. All the while, I’m talking to God. I keep saying “Dear God, I know that this is not the way you want me—not like this.” For some strange reason, it did not feel right—it wasn’t my day. A gentleman holds my hand. I never got his name. I say thank you to him. Slowly, we get to the 10th floor, and we start to laugh because the single numbers are coming and we’re almost there. It’s close to one hour later that it took to walk down those stairs.

Never in a million years did I expect what I saw next. When we came through the mezzanine, the Port Authority Police were standing side by side, in a row to guide us how to walk out, but quite a few feet apart from each other doing their best to shield us from the atrocity that lay behind them. The mezzanine is constructed with floor to ceiling glass walls. Behind those walls, I see a body (man or woman, I don’t know) with part of the right side of the cheek blown off. A few feet away, I see a man’s legs, but there’s no torso, I see intestines just lying there bunched together. I put my hands to my mouth, and I knew my eyes were bulging. An officer yells not to look over there, but you cannot help it.

We are led down to the retail section of WTC. There is water everywhere. We finally exit the WTC on Vesey Street. Sylvia meets up with me. She yells to me, Roz, look back. As I do so, I see both towers on fire at the top. I turn around to go to another one of my company’s buildings to make a call, to let them know that I am okay. As I approach Nassau Street, chaos is around me. Everyone is screaming all of a sudden, when I look back, 2 WTC is falling, and the force is pushing the debris through any space it can find. I kick my shoes off and start to run. I have to get to my daughter, and I do not know how I’m going to get to her. I run as far as South Street Seaport. I see a lady in a car, and she’s smiling. I walk over to her car and say, “Mamma, my name is Roz, I have no shoes or money to pay you, but I have to get to my daughter, she goes to school in Midtown. Can you please help me?” She tells me to get in. Her name is Isolene, she works at the UN, and she too is on her way to pick up her daughter. She takes me to her home, by the FDR Drive, and gives me shoes. I went to the bathroom, and just dropped to my knees and asked God’s forgiveness. I was so afraid. When I came from the bathroom, I noticed a map on Isolene’s wall, a map of Barbados. I ask “Are you from Barbados?” She says “yes.” I say “Me

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too.” Isolene then takes me to get my daughter. By the time I reach her school, my sister is already there, but I did not see her. I start to cry in the Principal’s office, as I ask them to release my daughter from school today, Andrea sees me, and screams my name, as we embrace. The principal is looking at us as if we’re nuts. But I felt she understood.

We got Amanda, and I headed to my Headquarters to let them see and know that I was okay. When I arrived, Mr. Silverstein was visibly shaken. I say, “Mr. Silverstein, are you okay, he said he was, but I know he felt seven thousand times worse than I did. I leave the building to head home. My sister, her friend June, Amanda and I headed to the 59th Street Bridge. I don’t know how I walked over that bridge after walking down 88 flights of stairs, but I knew God was with me.

I carried Amanda most of the way, because she was incapable of walking for such a long period of time. The shoes Isolene gave me were very comfortable and that helped to ease some of the pressure. Never was I so happy to see that sign that reads “Welcome to Queens, Mayor is Rudolph Giuliani.” I was so tired when I arrived home. I had not eaten or drank anything all day, and yet I was not thirsty or hungry. Maybe just shock. When I arrived home, my Grandmother was waiting for me, as well as some of my neighbors. They all hugged and kissed me. I received so many calls and well wishes from folks in Barbados, New York, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and England. I did not realize how many people cared about Amanda and me, until that day. But above all, I must say a heartwarming and sincere thank you to Queens Regular Baptist Church, for being there for Amanda and me, in so many ways, and for allowing me to share my story. By being able to talk about it, or expressing it in some way, helps in allowing me to face the next day, even though I am afraid.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020203125404/http://www.servenyc.org/survivor_stories.htm

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Hiroshima Witness Accounts

Testimony of Kinue TomoyasuMs. Kinue Tomoyasu was 44 years old at the time of the A-bomb attack. She was at home, 5 kilometers from the hypocenter. She then entered Hiroshima City to search for her daughter. Previously her husband had died of illness and her only son was sent to a battle field. She was living with her only daughter. Ms. Tomoyasu was admitted to the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Victims Nursing Home thirteen years ago.

TOMOYASU: That morning I left home with my daughter. She was working at the industrial Research Institute. Then an air-raid warning was issued. I went back home, but my daughter insisted, ``I'm going to the office.'' even though the air-raid warning had been issued. She reached the train station. The trains were always late in the morning, but they were on time that day. She took the train and when she got off at the station, she was hit by the A-bomb. I went inside my home since the warning was still on. I tucked myself in bed and waited for the warning to be lifted.

After the warning was lifted, I got up and folded the bedding, put it back into the closet, and opened the window. As I opened the window, there came the flash. it was so bright, a ten or hundred or thousand times brighter than a camera flash bulb. The flash was piercing my eyes and my mind went blank. The glass from the windows was shattered all over the floor. I was lying on the floor, too. When I came to, I was anxious to know what happened to my daughter, Yatchan. I looked outside the window and saw one of my neighbors. He was standing out there. I called, ``Mr. Okamoto, what was that flash?'' He said, ``That was a killer beam.'' I

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became more anxious. I thought, ``I must go, I must go and find her.'' I swept up the pieces of glass, put my shoes on, and took my air-raid hood with me. I made my way to a train station near Hiroshima. I saw a young girl coming my way. Her skin was dangling all ever and she was naked. She was muttering, ``Mother, water,mother,water.'' I took a look at her. I thought she might be my daughter, but she wasn't. I didn't give her any water. I am sorry that I didn't. But my mind was full, worrying about my daughter. I ran all the way to Hiroshima Station. Hiroshima Station was full of people. Some of them were dead, and many of them were lying on the ground, calling for their mothers and asking for water. I went to Tokiwa Bridge. I had to cross the bridge to get to my daughter's office. But there was a rope for tote across the bridge. And the people there told me, ``You can't go beyond here today.'' I protested, ``My daughter's office is over there. Please let me go through.'' They told me, ``No.'' Some men were daring to make the way through, but I couldn't go beyond it. I thought she might be on a way back home. I returned home, but my daughter was not back yet.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see the large cloud?

TOMOYASU: No, I didn't see the cloud.

INTERVIEWER: You didn't see the mushroom cloud?

TOMOYASU: I didn't see the Mushroom cloud. I was trying to find my daughter. They told me I couldn't go beyond the bridge. I thought she might be back home, so I went back as far as Nikitsu Shrine. Then, the black rain started falling from the sky. And I wondered what it was. And it was what's called the black rain.

INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us what was the black rain like?

TOMOYASU: It was like a heavy rain. And I had my air-raid hood on, so I didn't get it on my head fortunately, but it fell on my hands. And I ran and ran. I waited for her with the windows open. I stayed awake all night waiting and waiting for her, but she didn't come back. About six thirty on the morning of the 7th, Mr. Ishido, whose daughter was working at the same office with my daughter, came around. He called out asking for the Tomoyasu's house. I went outside calling to him, ``It's here, over here!'' Mr.Ishido came up to me and said, ``Quick! Get some clothes and go for her. Your daughter is at the bank of the Ota River.'' I said, ``Thank you, thank you very much. Is she still alive?'' He said, ``She is alive,'' and added, ``I'll show you the way.'' I took a yukata with me. My neighbors offered me a stretcher. And I started running at full speed. People followed me and said, ``Slow down! Be careful not to hurt yourself!'' But still, I hurried as fast as I could. When I reached the Tokiwa Bridge, there were soldiers lying on the ground. Around Hiroshima Station, I saw more people lying dead, more on the morning of the 7th than on the 6th. When I reached the river bank, I couldn't tell who was who. I kept wondering where my daughter was. But then, she cried for me, ``Mother!'' I recognized her voice. I found her in a horrible condition. Her face looked terrible. And she still appears in my dreams like that sometimes. When I met her, she said, ``There shouldn't be any war.'' The first thing she said to me was ``Mother, it took you so I couldn't do anything for her. My neighbors went back home. They had wounded family members as well. I was all by myself, and I didn't know what to do. There were maggots in her wounds and a sticky yellowish pus, a white watery liquid coming out her wounds and a sticky yellowish liquid. I didn't know what was going on.

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INTERVIEWER: So you tried to remove the maggots from your daughter's body?

TOMOYASU: Yes. But her skin was just peeling right off. The maggots were coming out all over. I couldn't wipe them off. I thought it would be too painful. I picked off some maggots, though. She asked me what I was doing and I told her, ``Oh, it's nothing.'' She nodded at my words. And nine hours later, she died.

INTERVIEWER: You were holding her in your arms all that time?

TOMOYASU: Yes, on my lap. I had had bedding and folded on the floor, but I held her in my arms. when I held her on my lap, she said, ``I don't want to die.'' I told her, ``Hang on Hang on.'' She said, ``I won't die before my brother comes home.'' But she was in pain and she kept crying, ``Brother. Mother.'' On August 15th, I held her funeral. And around early October, my hair started to come out. I wondered what was happening to me, but all my hair was disappearing. In November, I become bald. Then, purple spots started to appear around my neck, my body and my arms, and on the inner parts of my thighs, a lot of them, all over, the purple spots all over my body. I had a high fever of forty degrees. I was shivering and I couldn't consult the doctor. I still had a fever when I was admitted here for a while, but now I don't have a fever so often.

INTERVIEWER: After your son returned home from the war, what did he do?

TOMOYASU: He came back in February of 1946, and he took care of me. When he heard how his sister died, he said he felt so sorry for her. He told me he hated war. I understand. Many of his friends had died in the war. He told me he felt sorry that he survived. He was just filled with regret. My son got malaria during the war, also. He suffered a lot. I don't know why, but he became neurotic and killed himself, finally, by jumping in front of a train in October. I was left alone. I had to go through hardships, living alone. I have no family. I joined the white chrysanthemum organization at Hiroshima University, pledging to donate my body upon death for medical education and research. My registration number is number 1200 I'm ready. I'm ready now to be summoned by God at any moment. But God doesn't allow me to come his side yet. If it were not for the war, my two children would not have died. If it were not for the war, I wouldn't have to stay at an institution like this. I suppose the three of us would have been living together in happiness. Ah, it is so hard on me.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Hibakusha/Kinue.shtml

Also,

http://www.history.com/speeches/eyewitness-account-of-hiroshima-bombing#japans-unconditional-surrender

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The Bombing of Hiroshima, 1945August 6, 1945 - the sun rose into a clear blue sky over the city of Hiroshima, Japan promising a warm and pleasant day. Nothing in the day's dawning indicated that this day would be any different from its predecessors. But this day would be different, very different. This day would change the world. On this day a single bomb dropped by a single airplane destroyed the city, leading to the end of World War II and introducing mankind to the Atomic Age.Dr. Michihiko Hachiya lived through that day and kept a diary of his experience. He served as Director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital and lived near the hospital approximately a mile from the explosion's epicenter. His diary was published in English in 1955Suddenly, a strong flash of light..."The hour was early; the morning still, warm, and beautiful. Shimmering leaves, reflecting sunlight from a cloudless sky, made a pleasant contrast with shadows in my garden as I gazed absently through wide-flung doors opening to the south.Clad in drawers and undershirt, I was sprawled on the living room floor exhausted because I had just spent a sleepless night on duty as an air warden in my hospital.Suddenly, a strong flash of light startled me - and then another. So well does one recall little things that I remember vividly how a stone lantern in the garden became brilliantly lit and I debated whether this light was caused by a magnesium flare or sparks from a passing trolley.Garden shadows disappeared. The view where a moment before had been so bright and sunny was now dark and hazy. Through swirling dust I could barely

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discern a wooden column that had supported one comer of my house. It was leaning crazily and the roof sagged dangerously.Moving instinctively, I tried to escape, but rubble and fallen timbers barred the way. By picking my way cautiously I managed to reach the roka [an outside hallway]and stepped down into my garden. A profound weakness overcame me, so I stopped to regain my strength. To my surprise I discovered that I was completely naked How odd! Where were my drawers and undershirt?What had happened?All over the right side of my body I was cut and bleeding. A large splinter was protruding from a mangled wound in my thigh, and something warm trickled into my mouth. My check was torn, I discovered as I felt it gingerly, with the lower lip laid wide open. Embedded in my neck was a sizable fragment of glass which I matter-of-factly dislodged, and with the detachment of one stunned and shocked I studied it and my blood-stained hand.Where was my wife?Suddenly thoroughly alarmed, I began to yell for her: 'Yaeko-san! Yaeko-san! Where are you?' Blood began to spurt. Had my carotid artery been cut? Would I bleed to death? Frightened and irrational, I called out again 'It's a five-hundred-ton bomb! Yaeko-san, where are you? A five- hundred-ton bomb has fallen!'Yaeko-san, pale and frightened, her clothes torn and blood stained, emerged from the ruins of our house holding her elbow. Seeing her, I was reassured. My own panic assuaged, I tried to reassure her.'We'll be all right,' I exclaimed. 'Only let's get out of here as fast as we can.'She nodded, and I motioned for her to follow me."It was all a nightmare...Dr. Hachiya and his wife make their way to the street. As the homes around them collapse, they realize they must move on, and begin their journey to the hospital a few hundred yards away."We started out, but after twenty or thirty steps I had to stop. My breath became short, my heart pounded, and my legs gave way under me. An overpowering thirst seized me and I begged Yaeko-san to find me some water. But there was no water to be found. After a little my strength somewhat returned and we were able to go on.I was still naked, and although I did not feel the least bit of shame, I was disturbed to realize that modesty had deserted me. On rounding a corner we came upon a soldier standing idly in the street. He had a towel draped across his shoulder, and I asked if he would give it to me to cover my nakedness. The soldier surrendered the towel quite willingly but said not a word. A little later I lost the towel, and Yaeko-san took off her apron and tied it around my loins.Our progress towards the hospital was interminably slow, until finally, my legs, stiff from drying blood, refused to carry me farther. The strength, even the will, to go on deserted me, so I told my wife, who was almost as badly hurt as I, to go on alone. This she objected to, but there was no choice. She had to go ahead

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and try to find someone to come back for me.Yaeko-san looked into my face for a moment, and then, without saying a word, turned away and began running towards the hospital. Once, she looked back and waved and in a moment she was swallowed up in the gloom. It was quite dark now, and with my wife gone, a feeling of dreadful loneliness overcame me.I must have gone out of my head lying there in the road because the next thing I recall was discovering that the clot on my thigh had been dislodged and blood was again spurting from the wound.I pressed my hand to the bleeding area and after a while the bleeding stopped and I felt betterCould I go on?I tried. It was all a nightmare - my wounds, the darkness, the road ahead. My movements were ever so slow; only my mind was running at top speed.In time I came to an open space where the houses had been removed to make a fire lane. Through the dim light I could make out ahead of me the hazy outlines of the Communications Bureau's big concrete building, and beyond it the hospital. My spirits rose because I knew that now someone would find me; and if I should die, at least my body would be found. I paused to rest. Gradually things around me came into focus. There were the shadowy forms of people, some of whom looked like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in pain, like scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling. These people puzzled me until I suddenly realized that they had been burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together. A naked woman carrying a naked baby came into view. I averted my gaze. Perhaps they had been in the bath. But then I saw a naked man, and it occurred to me that, like myself, some strange thing had deprived them of their clothes. An old woman lay near me with an expression of suffering on her face; but she made no sound. Indeed, one thing was common to everyone I saw - complete silence.All who could were moving in the direction of the hospital. I joined in the dismal parade when my strength was somewhat recovered, and at last reached the gates of the Communications Bureau."

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pfhiroshima.htm

http://www.history.com/speeches/eyewitness-account-of-hiroshima-bombing#firsthand-account-of-hiroshima-bombing

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Dresden Witness Accounts:

(From Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five)

Every day we walked into the city and dug into basements and shelters to get the corpses out, as a sanitary measure. When we went into them, a typical shelter, an ordinary basement usually, looked like a streetcar full of people who’d simultaneously had heart failure. Just people sitting there in their chairs, all dead. A fire storm is an amazing thing. It doesn’t occur in nature. It’s fed by the tornadoes that occur in the midst of it and there isn’t a damned thing to breathe. We brought the dead out. They were loaded on wagons and taken to parks, large open areas in the city which weren’t filled with rubble. The Germans got funeral pyres going, burning the bodies to keep them from stinking and from spreading disease. 130,000 corpses were hidden underground. It was a terribly elaborate Easter egg hunt. We went to work through cordons of German soldiers. Civilians didn’t get to see what we were up to. After a few days the city began to smell, and a new technique was invented. Necessity is the mother of invention. We would bust into the shelter, gather up valuables from people’s laps without attempting identification, and turn the valuables over to guards. Then soldiers would come with a flame thrower and stand in the door and cremate the people inside. Get the gold and jewelry out and then burn everybody inside.

I survived the bombing of Dresden and continue to believe it was a war crime

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/15/bombing-dresden-war-crime

I wasn't new to murder and bloodletting. I had enlisted two years prior to the outbreak of the

second world war and by the time I was 21 I had taken part in one major battle and various

smaller ones. I had been in fights where the ground in front of me was littered with the remains

of young men who had once been full of the joy of living, laughing and joking with their mates.

As each year of the war went by, the fighting got more ferocious, new weapons were introduced

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and fresh young men became the targets. How I remained a sane person through all this I don't

know.

Then came the evening of the 13 February, 1945 – 68 years ago this week. I was a prisoner of

war held in Dresden. At about 10.30pm that night, the air raid sirens started their mournful

wailing and because this happened every night no notice was taken. The people of Dresden

believed that as long as the Luftwaffe kept away from Oxford, Dresden would be spared. The

sirens stopped and after a short period of silence the first wave of pathfinders were over the city

dropping their target flares.

As the incendiaries fell, the phosphorus clung to the bodies of those below, turning them into

human torches. The screaming of those who were being burned alive was added to the cries of

those not yet hit. There was no need for flares to lead the second wave of bombers to their target,

as the whole city had become a gigantic torch. It must have been visible to the pilots from a

hundred miles away. Dresden had no defences, no anti-aircraft guns, no searchlights, nothing.

My account of this tragedy, Dresden: A Survivor's Story, was published on the day of the

anniversary this week. I gave a number of interviews around the publication, in which I insisted

that the affair was a war crime at the highest level, a stain upon the name Englishman that only

an apology made in full public view would suffice to obliterate.

Many – including some writing comments underneath articles on this site – have criticised me

for this. Reading through the criticisms I have to admit that some of the things I have written

have caused many people some hurt, but to these people I would say that as a person I still suffer

at times the memories of those terrible events.

From being regarded as some form of hero on the one hand, to a Nazi supporter on the other, has

taught me that there are so many sides to any question. I have learned to try to understand those

who disagree with my outlook. Like Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five, I wrote as I

witnessed. I have no axe to grind. I just sat down and tried to empty my mind and clear away the

residues of the nightmares that I still occasionally suffered from.

My justification for still harbouring these attitudes is the events in European history since the

ending of the second world war. The massacres in Bosnia at Srebrenica, the hurling of

Tomahawk missiles by British naval cruisers into the centre of an inhabited Benghazi, the

manner in which as a nation we still tend to be sympathetic to the use of superior aircraft strength

to bomb overcrowded refugee centres. These are the reasons my anger has refused to subside.

Perhaps I should be more realistic and knuckle down to the concept of the brutality of the human

race, but I have always been a stubborn individual. I am not a diplomat. I just happen to have

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witnessed the worst that man has to offer and I like it not one bit. Bearing in mind that I care

deeply about the future of all my children and grandchildren, please allow me to express my

anger.

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1589

Eyewitness Götz Bergander Recalls the Bombing of Dresden (Retrospective Account)

page 1 of 4

There had been two American daylight attacks on Dresden, one in October 1944, one in January 1945. The latter was somewhat heavier and we knew that Dresden wasn't going to come out of it untouched. Nevertheless, we had no idea what we were in for; we didn't have the experience they had in Hamburg, Berlin, Kassel, or the Ruhrgebiet. I got myself a grid map of Germany. You could listen in on a radio channel—we called it the

flak channel but it actually came from the headquarters near Berlin—which transmitted coded air

intelligence. Whenever I was home I listened to this channel and marked the flight paths on the

large map which I'd covered with onionskin paper. I still have this map.

And that's how it was on the evening of February 13, which happened to be Mardi Gras. You

could determine the approach of a massive raid far into central Germany, beyond Leipzig. When

the alarm sounded, it was approximately 20 minutes before 10:00 P.M.

The city was already filled with refugees; everything was a dull, war gray. The train stations

were bursting with people. I had already participated in some so-called refugee aid there. We

received refugees from Silesia and tried to get them and their baggage out of the city as quickly

as possible. They were taken to old dance halls, ballrooms, and cinemas in the suburbs, but some

always remained in the city center—those who'd just arrived and had not yet been

accommodated.

According to certain city documents, Dresden had approximately 640,000 inhabitants, and I'd

estimate that there were perhaps a million people in the city, so there were about 300,000

refugees. There were no bunkers at all—not one public air raid shelter. At Dresden's main train

station, luggage storage rooms and basements had been set up as shelters.

People thought Dresden would be spared. There were rumors that the British thought a great deal

of Dresden as a cultural center. The story also went around that an aunt of Churchill's lived in

Dresden, and in 1945 the rumor circulated that the Allies intended to use Dresden as their capital.

Even by then, we expected partition; we thought the Russians would occupy the eastern half and

the others the western half. Finally, people said, Dresden is full of hospitals.

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All of this was wrong. All these claims, including the one that Dresden was protected because it

was a "hospital" city, were false. Dresden was completely unprotected. The flak had been

withdrawn during the winter. Half the guns were sent to the Ruhr to strengthen the air defense

there, only to be lost when the Americans overran the area. It was ridiculous. The Dresden anti-

aircraft troops weren't killed in Dresden, but died fighting against the Americans.

As I listened to the flak channel, I had a feeling of ever-increasing dread, but layered with

excitement. You could compare it to what every soldier feels before he has to leave the trench.

You're afraid, yet at the same time very excited, wondering what's going to happen. Talk about

butterflies! I took my radio down to the air-raid shelter and tried to tune into the flak channel.

Our shelter warden was outside.

GHDI - Document - Page

While I was still fiddling with the radio dial he came running down into the cellar and called,

"It's getting light, it's getting light, it's bright as day outside! They're coming, they're coming, the

dive bombers are here!" I told him: "But that's impossible, dive bombers can't fly at night." He

said: "I saw them, they came right over the Friedrichstadt hospital." After the war we found out

that he had really seen Mosquitos come down with target flares. They dropped the target markers

about 500 yards from where we lived, and the markers exploded in the air before they hit the

ground. The so-called "Christmas trees" came down by parachute. Everything was quiet for

awhile, until we heard the bombers and the first explosions.

It was as if a huge noisy conveyor belt was rolling over us, a noise punctuated with detonations

and tremors. It lasted for about 25 minutes before it gradually ceased. Then there was absolute

quiet.

I had tuned in to the local air raid broadcasts, and their last announcement had been, "Attention!

Attention! This is your local air defense office. Bombs in the city area. Citizens, keep sand and

water ready." Then it was cut off.

I went outside after this first attack because our warden told us we had to look for incendiaries.

We didn't find any, but coming out of the cellar was unforgettable: the night sky was illuminated

with pink and red. The houses were black silhouettes, and a red cloud of smoke hovered over

everything. I left our courtyard and climbed onto the roof of the factory next door with my

camera. I thought, "You have to take a picture of this."

People ran toward us totally distraught, smeared with ash, and with wet blankets wrapped around

their heads. These people made it out of the burning areas without too much difficulty, because 85

the firestorm only developed about half an hour to an hour after the first of the two night attacks.

All we heard was, "Everything's gone, everything's on fire."

In the meantime, many people had gathered in our courtyard. They had all come to our house

because it was still intact. Everyone talked at once until someone yelled, "They're coming back,

they're coming back!" Sure enough, through the general confusion we heard the alarm sirens go

off again. The alarm system in the city had ceased to function, but we could hear the sirens from

the neighboring villages warning of a second attack. That's when I was overcome with panic, and

I'm also speaking for the rest of my family and those who lived in our house. It was sheer panic!

We thought this couldn't be possible, that they wouldn't do such a thing. They wouldn't drop

more bombs on a city that was already an inferno. We were a target not even the worst shot

could miss. We rushed into the cellar, and the second attack began just like the first one.

The first raid was flown by the famous 5th Bomber Group which had been specially pre selected

for the initial incendiary attack. The rest of the bomber groups came in for the second attack. The

British really put everything they had into the air that night, though not all of it was used against

Dresden. Approximately 800 planes were deployed against Dresden, and another 300 went

against a refinery near Leipzig.

GHDI - Document - Page

This attack left exhaustion and tension in its wake, a feeling of utter helplessness and terror.

Since high-explosive bombs came down in our immediate vicinity, we had no idea of what it

looked like outside. Neither did we hear the slapping sound of incendiaries. There was an

indescribable roar in the air: the fire. The thundering fire reminded me of the biblical

catastrophes I had heard about in my education in the humanities. I was aghast. I can't describe

seeing this city burn in any other way. The color had changed as well. It was no longer pinkish-

red. The fire had become a furious white and yellow, and the sky was just one massive mountain

of cloud. The blaze roared, with intermittent blasts of either delayed-action bombs or unexploded

bombs which were engulfed by the flames.

In the morning I turned on my radio and listened to the BBC. On the seven o'clock news, the

BBC reported: "Last night, Dresden, one of the few German cities thus far to be spared, was

attacked by RAF bombers with great success."

Later, people arrived from the inner city asking if we still had water. We said yes and opened the

hydrants. Several of them settled into our house, but many others told us, "Out, out, get out of the

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city. Get away from here," and went on. Some were speechless with horror. They only said, "My

home and everything in it are gone."

Since the factory supplied its own power and water, it could be kept running. My father, who

was the manager, had to decide whether work should continue. We produced yeast for baked

goods. My father said that food was important, so we'd have to keep operating. And the workers

showed up too. I don't know if anyone can work like the Germans. It was amazing. Some even

came on their bicycles between the two night raids. I still remember one of them pedaling up and

my father asking him, "What are you doing here?" And he replied, "I just had to see if the shop's

still in one piece."

The city was absolutely quiet. The sound of the fires had died out. The rising smoke created a

dirty, gray pall which hung over the entire city. The wind had calmed, but a slight breeze was

blowing westward, away from us. That's how, standing in the courtyard, I suddenly thought I

could hear sirens again. And sure enough, there they were. I shouted, and by then we could

already hear the distant whine of engines. We rushed down into the cellar. The roar of the

engines grew louder and louder, and the daylight attack began. This was the American 8th Air

Force, and their attack came right down on our heads.

Normally, there were only 20 to 25 of us down in the cellar. But now, with many people off the

street, including those who'd stopped over at our house, there were about 100 of us.

Nevertheless, no one panicked—we were too numb and demoralized from the night before. We

just sat there. The attack rolled closer, and then a bomb hit. It was like a bowling ball that

bounced, or jumped perhaps, and at that moment the lights went out. The whole basement filled

with dust. When the bomb carpet reached us, I crouched in a squatting position, my head

between my legs. The air pressure was immense, but only for a moment. The rubber seals on the

windows and the steel doors probably helped to absorb some of the impact. Someone screamed,

and then it was quiet. Then a voice shouted, "It's all right, nothing's happened." It was the shelter

warden.

GHDI - Document - Page

This attack left exhaustion and tension in its wake, a feeling of utter helplessness and terror.

Since high-explosive bombs came down in our immediate vicinity, we had no idea of what it

looked like outside. Neither did we hear the slapping sound of incendiaries. There was an

indescribable roar in the air: the fire. The thundering fire reminded me of the biblical

catastrophes I had heard about in my education in the humanities. I was aghast. I can't describe 87

seeing this city burn in any other way. The color had changed as well. It was no longer pinkish-

red. The fire had become a furious white and yellow, and the sky was just one massive mountain

of cloud. The blaze roared, with intermittent blasts of either delayed-action bombs or unexploded

bombs which were engulfed by the flames.

In the morning I turned on my radio and listened to the BBC. On the seven o'clock news, the

BBC reported: "Last night, Dresden, one of the few German cities thus far to be spared, was

attacked by RAF bombers with great success."

Later, people arrived from the inner city asking if we still had water. We said yes and opened the

hydrants. Several of them settled into our house, but many others told us, "Out, out, get out of the

city. Get away from here," and went on. Some were speechless with horror. They only said, "My

home and everything in it are gone."

Since the factory supplied its own power and water, it could be kept running. My father, who

was the manager, had to decide whether work should continue. We produced yeast for baked

goods. My father said that food was important, so we'd have to keep operating. And the workers

showed up too. I don't know if anyone can work like the Germans. It was amazing. Some even

came on their bicycles between the two night raids. I still remember one of them pedaling up and

my father asking him, "What are you doing here?" And he replied, "I just had to see if the shop's

still in one piece."

The city was absolutely quiet. The sound of the fires had died out. The rising smoke created a

dirty, gray pall which hung over the entire city. The wind had calmed, but a slight breeze was

blowing westward, away from us. That's how, standing in the courtyard, I suddenly thought I

could hear sirens again. And sure enough, there they were. I shouted, and by then we could

already hear the distant whine of engines. We rushed down into the cellar. The roar of the

engines grew louder and louder, and the daylight attack began. This was the American 8th Air

Force, and their attack came right down on our heads.

Normally, there were only 20 to 25 of us down in the cellar. But now, with many people off the

street, including those who'd stopped over at our house, there were about 100 of us.

Nevertheless, no one panicked—we were too numb and demoralized from the night before. We

just sat there. The attack rolled closer, and then a bomb hit. It was like a bowling ball that

bounced, or jumped perhaps, and at that moment the lights went out. The whole basement filled

with dust. When the bomb carpet reached us, I crouched in a squatting position, my head

between my legs. The air pressure was immense, but only for a moment. The rubber seals on the

windows and the steel doors probably helped to absorb some of the impact. Someone screamed,

88

and then it was quiet. Then a voice shouted, "It's all right, nothing's happened." It was the shelter

warden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGcO6zZ4MRM&safe=active

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11393917/The-firebombing-of-Dresden-archive-footage.html

"Empty Sky" Bruce Springsteen

I woke up this morningI could barely breathe

Just an empty impressionIn the bed where you used to be

I want a kiss from your lipsI want an eye for an eye

I woke up this morning to the empty sky

Empty sky, empty skyI woke up this morning to an empty sky

Empty sky, empty skyI woke up this morning to an empty sky

Blood on the streetsYeah blood flowin' down

I hear the blood of my bloodCryin' from the ground

Empty sky, empty skyI woke up this morning to an empty sky

Empty sky, empty skyI woke up this morning to an empty sky

On the plains of JordanI cut my bow from the wood

Of this tree of evilOf this tree of good

I want a kiss from your lipsI want an eye for an eye

I woke up this morning to an empty sky

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Empty sky, empty skyI woke up this morning to an empty sky

Empty sky, empty skyI woke up this morning to an empty sky

Empty sky, empty skyI woke up this morning to an empty sky

“You’re Missing"Bruce Springsteen

Shirts in the closet, shoes in the hallMama's in the kitchen, baby and all

Everything is everythingEverything is everything

But you're missing

Coffee cups on the counter, jackets on the chairPapers on the doorstep, you're not there

Everything is everythingEverything is everything

But you're missing

Pictures on the nightstand, TV's on in the denYour house is waiting, your house is waiting

For you to walk in, for you to walk inBut you're missing, you're missing

You're missing when I shut out the lightsYou're missing when I close my eyes

You're missing when I see the sun riseYou're missing

Children are asking if it's alrightWill you be in our arms tonight?

Morning is morning, the evening falls I haveToo much room in my bed, too many phone calls

How's everything, everything?Everything, everything

You're missing, you're missing

God's drifting in heaven, devil's in the mailboxI got dust on my shoes, nothing but teardrops

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Bateson

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De Bono

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Oskar and Me Venn Diagram (in Mainstage folder for Centennial Park) or you can make your at

http://www.worksheetworks.com/miscellanea/graphic-organizers/venn.html94

Notes and Ideas

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How does the author use text and image to further the narrative?Why does the author choose these images?How do we read images differently than we read text?Repetition of images?Colors?The man falling..

Three different stories

Illustrations of the 6th borough

Personal letters from survivors of tragedy?

Letters from people about their 9/11 experience. Staff and Community members.

Make this a year long thematic class link to A Thousand Splendid Suns or The Color PurpleLetters to god-theme of letters in EL and IC

Why didn’t the dad call the grandma?

How do you react to and respond and deal with pain?

Why is the Mom so unexplained-she is action and not explanation

Metaphor poem: I am a letter to an unborn child. I am a key around my neck.

Witness account: What is the final witness account for this book. What do you take away that you need to share with others.

Things that make my boots lighter: 1000 cranes write what make boots lighter, put them on origami paper.

A Thousand Splendid Suns: Khalid Hosseini

Endurance of the human spirit..

Dedications…

We’d like to thank our extremely knowledgeable & incredibly helpful colleague and coach, Barb Murray (you take a sad song and make it better…) with heavy and light influence from Frampton, Benatar, and Fleetwood.

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This unit is dedicated to Tubthumpers everywhere... “I get knocked down but I get up again, you’re never gonna get me down.”

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