# data[].attributes.body
Name: Patrick Sullivan
Email: 24394ps@chaminade-hs.org

Name: Daniel Sullivan
Email: 24392ds@chaminade-hs.org

Name: Dylan Shannon
Email: 24378ds@chaminade-hs.org

# data[].attributes.body
Always have the pages read before the meetings.

# data[].attributes.body
Section/Pages: Chapters 1-8
Members Present: 3

Discussion Highlights:
- We started our discussion by highlighting our initial impressions of the novel. There were a few mixed reactions, but no one seem to hate the book so far.
- We then discussed what we think will happen in the future of the text. We also found ourselves thinking about why Tim O’Brien wrote the book like a collection of mini stories.
- After discussing the structure of the novel, we moved on to brainstorming some themes that we thought were going to be present throughout the entirety of the novel based on our initial reads. We concluded that the ideas of decision making and morality were two themes that occured a lot throughout the beginning of the text.
- We shared the selections of text that we thought were important with each other and explained as to why we thought they deserved the spotlight.
- Finally, we established a game plan for the next few sections of the book. The game plan included looking for common themes and trying to piece the story together.

# data[].attributes.body
Section/Pages: Chapters 16-22
Members Present: 3

Discussion Highlights:
- First we discussed whether or not Jimmy Cross is responsible for the death of Kiowa. Jimmy thought that he should pull his men out but commands higher up gave him orders not to. Kiowa was compassionate and respectful and his death due to staying at the dangerous bank, we’ve determined, was not jimmy’s fault. He was only following the command he was ordered to do.
- talked about how good leaders feel responsibility and don’t want there position, just like Jimmy Cross.
- We found it very interesting that in “Goof Form” we realized that some of the things that happened in the story might not have been completely true, but used to present important things.
- Importance of the soldiers/ people around you, when O’Brien is shot, Miley takes great care of him, but when a new medic comes in he fails to treat O’Brien the way kiley did and he ends up in extreme pain. He wants to get back at the medic Jorgensen but eventually they settle their differences which is very important because trusting the people around you is important.
-we talk about the effect this war his having on the soldiers like Kiley, and whether we’d be able to do the same.
-discussed all the death Vietnam soldiers had to experience and how they had make up ways to make them seem less dead so they would not go insane.
-We discussed whether we argued that the dead live.

# data[].attributes.body
Section/Pages: Chapters 9-15
Members Present: 3

Discussion Highlights:
- To start off our conversation we began to talk about each of our selections and why we chose them.
- We began to talk about what we believed the theme of this book to be.
- Two of the themes that we came up with for this book are the theme of guilt and the theme of war. We came up with these because Tim O’Brien talks about his friends who died and people that he has seen die and how he feels responsible for those deaths. We also came up with the theme of war because most of the book is about war since Tim O’Brien was a soldier in the war.
- We also discussed Patrick’s haiku and how his haiku relates to the themes that we had just discussed.
- Lastly, we began to discuss what we were going to read for the next meeting and how we could be more productive with our time.

# data[].attributes.body
Meeting 1 Date: 1/17/23
Pages / Section: Chapters 1-5

Meeting 2 Date: 1/25/23
Pages / Section: Chapters 6-10

Meeting 3 Date: 2/3/23
Pages / Section: Chapters 11-16

Meeting 4 Date: 2/13/23
Pages / Section: Chapters 17-22

# data[].attributes.body
Bring a question or topic to the meeting which you want to talk about from the reading.

# data[].attributes.body
ANALYSIS

The chapter and specifically this section shows a lot of perspective of what people are feeling about the war. In this case, it was the young medic Rat Kiley and after being in the war, lost his mind. Rat shared to the group his perspective of what’s going on for him right now. He said that he was starting losing it and was seeing images in his head of gruesome things. Pictures of livers, guts, his chopped up body, and bugs eating his body. Eventually he shot himself in the foot in order to get out of Vietnam. In this section O’Brien uses the perspective of other people in his group to show the horrors of war and what it does to people, in this case mentally.

# data[].attributes.body
REFLECTION

This selection relates back to the chapter “the Rainy River” when Tim tries to flee the country because he doesn’t believe in war and killing. Since he was a coward and went to the war, he ended up killing a man that was just like him. Someone whom probably didn’t believe in the war but still went because of his villages tradition and the fact that if he didn’t he would be he would be a disgrace to his father and uncles who all fought for their land. This section makes me think about all the soldiers that have been drafted into wars they didn’t want to fight and forced to kill even though they don’t agree with it. All these people fighting wars they have no involvement in and being forced to kill others just like them because their life is on the line. I can connect to how Tim feels after seeing the dismantled body, I would also be speechless and upset.

FREE SPACE

Haiku

Eying death,

Speechless, upset, and

Regretful.

# data[].attributes.body
Always have your book in class for the meetings.

# data[].attributes.body
ANALYSIS

One element that this selection encororates and develops is one important  theme of the story which is guiltiness and weakness. Tim decides to go to war even though he doesn’t believe in war and killing. He does this because he is embarrassed that others will think he is a coward. This shows that he is weak and couldn’t do what he wanted to do because of the opinions of others. It also makes him guilty because he is going to kill people in this war even though he shouldn’t even be there in the first place. What Tim does in this section develops the theme of the whole story of weakness to not do what you believe is right and guiltiness of now having to kill people in war.

# data[].attributes.body
Haiku:

The false lies feel true.
The truth lacks detail and pain.
Lies defeat the truth.

# data[].attributes.body
https://forms.gle/cCJbHs6scjgEERui7

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Access Google Forms with a personal Google account or Google Workspace account (for business use).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
1 Brainstorm a LIST OF THEMES for the book thus far. Then, select one theme from the list and find at least three pieces of textual evidence to support it. 1

# data[].attributes.body
1. We have to be focused while reading the text if we want to get the most out of it. (Try to annotate while you read.)
2. Everyone read what they were supposed to. We want to keep this up moving forward.
3. The meeting could have been a little more productive. We want to increase our work ethic for the next meeting.

# data[].attributes.body
1. A lot of stuff is needed to be discussed because there was a lot of reading.
2. Thoroughly discussed a lot of topics about the chapters because everyone was prepared and read the pages.
3. Everyone brought in good things to talk about.
4. Everyone participated in the discussion and we all enjoyed reading the story and would definitely recommend.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Everyone in our book club, On The Same Page, read the chapters required for this week.

2. Our Meeting this week was very productive and efficient because everyone participated in the conversation.
3. We talked about a lot of topics which all sparked further conversation which would rarely lead to silence.

# data[].attributes.body
Based on the stories I look forward to making a short story that expresses some of the messages but through a different story. My plan is that at a time of weakness an engineer agrees to weaponize some sort of devise and show the destruction it causes. Then the guilt of his decision and he can’t take it undue the damages he’s caused.

# data[].attributes.body
Since The Things They Carried is essentially a collection of short stories, I would like to do a collection of poems for my independent project. I would like each poem to have some correlation to a different chapter of the book. I essentially want to create my own version of The Things They Carried in poetry form. I also want to highlight a certain theme of the book within each individual poem. Although I am unaware of which themes I will do as of now, I do know that I am going to have a great time writing these poems.

# data[].attributes.body
Dylan Shannon - Through my reading of this book I have decided that I will create a short for my Indie Project. I have not decided what the story will be yet. I know I will incorporate the theme of The Things They Carried into my short story to keep it along the same lines as the short stories in this book. So my Indie Project will most likely be a short story with a theme of war, death, and guilt.