To underscore the importance of a writer's imagination during a tumultuous life moment, I paired O'Brien's novel with a pictorial of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection Offerings at the Wall, which documents what visitors to the Vietnam Wall have "carried" with them to leave as votive offerings to the dead. According to the preface of the book,
At first, National Park Service rangers did not know what to do with the things they were finding each day at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. . . . The rangers gathered up flags and roses, letters and teddy bears, toy cars and birthday cards, dog tags and service medals, cans of C ration and packets of Army-issue toilet paper. For a time, everyone was puzzled by the status of the objects, many of which were obviously valuable, yet purposely abandoned. But awareness grew that there was something almost sacred about these objects: They were like tangible bonds between those who fell in Vietnam and those who remembered.
The majority of the items left at the Wall was left without any explanation and therefore Links Of London Charms(http://www.links-of-london.org/S-Charms-4.html) appear in the collection without any caption, leaving the opportunity for unlimited imaginings for my students. However, simply asking students to imagine puts them in an instant state of fear; they don't believe they are creative or imaginative and feel much more comfortable when they know there is a right or wrong answer. On more than one occasion, I have heard them grumble, "Just tell me what I need to know." Therefore, I knew that scaffolding this lesson would be imperative to its success. I used what Paula Rutherford refers to as frames of reference. I gave students a graphic organizer that pictured what looks like a matted frame. In the center, where a picture would be placed in a picture frame, I asked students to place a sentimental object that is important to them, prompting them to think about items that are not necessarily valuable to anyone but them. I then gave students several minutes to jot down words or phrases that explain the emotions attached to the object "pictured." These words went in the "mat" area of their frame of reference. Finally, I asked students to fill the "frame" area of the graphic with the memories, people, and events that are attached to the object. Students then shared their individual sentimental object frames of reference with small groups, and then I asked them to think about what they would want to see happen to the object if they were to leave the material world. At least one person from each group said they would want someone in their family—usually a sibling or a parent—to have it. During our class discussion, we talked about the emotions, memories, and people attached to each of the objects. To culminate this activity, I asked students what they imagine others think their object says about them—their priorities, their motivations, their fears, their personality.
The next day I assigned students to groups of four and gave each group a copy of Offerings at the Wall to peruse. I asked them to recall our discussion from the day before and transfer their knowledge about their own sentimental items to those items left behind at the Wall. Each group then selected two random items and "invented" reasons and relationships for the items being placed as a votive offering. Using an ELMO projector to facilitate sharing, each group introduced their item and analysis of the imagined catharsis the votive offering provided. One group chose a golf trophy with a peace symbol taped to it and a note that says, "It's a beautiful day. We'd be playing golf. I'd be beating you by two strokes, sucker". The group came to the conclusion that giving up the object seemed to be the coping mechanism of someone who lost a dear friend in the war— an offering to ease the grief. Another group chose a deer's hoof cut cleanly above the ankle and screwed onto a stake with a leather label engraved "In Memory of Pfc. William B. Jones. Milford, N.Y.". The group surmised that perhaps Jones's leg was severed after stepping on a mine and the object is symbolic of how life is "cruelly unfair."
Using heterogeneous grouping for this activity proved valuable. At least one student in each group struggled with creating an explanation when no context for the object was provided. However, these students' more imaginative and creative peers modeled how they decided why the objects they chose were left behind at the Wall.
The following clay, I invited each group to draw a parallel between the tangible objects and emotions that the visitors to the Wall "carry" with them to the tangible and intangible weight Links Of London Friendship Bracelets(http://www.linkslondon4lover.com/friendship-bracelets-c-139.html) that the soldiers in O'Brien's novel "carry" with them. The discussion that followed offered insightful reflection about shared human experiences, but most importantly, the students' reflections did not judge—rather, their reflections sought to understand the emotional and physical impacts of war. In other words, student conversations centered on the loss of innocence, coping with emotional stresses and guilt, and the costs of lost opportunities. One poignant conversation centered on a picture that was left at the Wall of a Viet Cong soldier and his daughter. Attached to the photograph was a note that explained how the American soldier who left the picture had carried it around in his wallet for 22 years.
According to the note, during those years he "stared" at the picture, and his "heart and guts would burn with the pain of guilt". The students connected this offering to O'Brien's chapter "Ambush," which illustrates the narrator "staring" at the image of the corpse of a Viet Cong soldier he killed because he was "afraid". The narrator says, "Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don't. Now, 20 years later, the narrator reveals that he sometimes imagines "the young man coming out of the morning fog . . . his shoulders slightly stooped, his head cocked to the side, and he'll pass within a few yards.
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