War Journalism

1. War Journalism Steinbeck and Hemingway

2. Yesterday in Review • War has two causes: aggression and attempts at advantages • Aggression is enforced through drilling and drugs • War is still an unnatural state

3. Reminder: Vocabulary quiz Friday. Start studying soon as your will have homework assigned tonight that will be due Friday as well. • If you do not have the list, be sure to get one from me before you leave.

4. What is Journalism? • Journalism is essentially a reporter who writes more first person accounts of their personal experiences and the people they come in contact with while exploring a certain landscape. • Oftentimes, journalists will head to hostile areas in an effort to be in the center of the emotional hostility to report of the daily lives of those who suffering. • It is not uncommon for journalist to be shot for recording information, confused as a combatant, or simply despised by a group of people. • Since the beginning of this year alone, enemy forces captured journalists in Iraq, Libya, and Egypt.

5. Why Soldiers Won’t Talk John Steinbeck

6. The Seriousness of Silence • Steinbeck investigates why soldiers do not seem to want to talk about their battlefield experiences. • His conclusion- they honestly do not remember • His essay takes both a scientific approach to the subject, mentioning the chemicals dumped into the human blood stream by a stressed body, and vivid, tactile sensations experienced by the body of the soldier. • Note Steinbeck’s use of shortened sentences of emphasis of specific points of interest. “The whole world becomes unreal.” “It slips away so fast.” • Ex. Traumatic childhoods, Child Birth, Severe Injury

7. War • Is war necessary? • If yes, why? • If no, what are realistic alternatives? • Write at least 4 sentences

8. A New Kind of War • Contains both first person p.o.v. and second person (“as you lie in bed”). • Hemingway uses onomatopoeia to describe the sound of different weapons “tacrong, capong” • This adds to the sensory detail Hemingway uses to give the reader they are there with him • Uses olfactory detail with the “acrid smell of high explosive” • “You did not know the man.” “It wasn’t me.” characterizes the emotional detachment one must take in war.

9. Note the kind of man Hemingway is to voluntarily pay for the nicer rooms on the side the bombs are dropping from. • While writing in the second person, Hemingway inserts his life experiences in the story, for instance driving the ambulance for the Italians. • Note the distance Hemingway places between himself and Raven, the man that once had a face. • Hemingway disbelieved Raven’s story of how he was injured, believing that he told only the story of how he wanted to be injured, possibly in order to impress the well known writer.

10. Conclusion • The piece ends with Hemingway talking with a battle hardened soldier from several horrible battle wounds who describes the grueling battle he had fought for the last three days. • He ends his story with regretting the fact that Raven, the unsuspecting social worker was hit at the end. • Hemingway notes the “this a strange kind of war where you learn as much as you are able to believe.” • This implies that there are many lessons to learn from this war, if you are able to open your mind to learn the lessons it has to teach. • Finally, Hemingway is shocked to discover after his distant blasé take on the war, that he had misjudged a hero.

11. Reminders • Vocabulary Quiz tomorrow • Journalism piece due tomorrow • Quiz over the first three chapters of Fallen Angels on Tuesday

12. Yesterday in Review • “Why Soldiers Won’t Talk” John Steinbeck • Steinbeck, through the use of sensory imagery and shortened, emphatic sentences, concluded that soldiers forget battles due to the stress of the situation and the fact that the brain does not want to remember. • “A New Kind of War” Ernest Hemingway • Hemingway, through sensory detail and shifting points of view, uses a casual tone to explain that if we choose not to care or believe in people we miss out a on chance to learn something about ourselves and other people. “This a strange kind of war where you learn as much as you are able to believe.”

13. Your Assignment • Write a one page journalism piece about any part of your daily experience. The activity must be something you do with other people. This is not a recording of your private thoughts while sitting in your room. • It is due Friday, and we will read them after the Vocabulary quiz. • You must write in either first or second person “You find yourself sitting in dimly lit classroom that contains no windows to the outside world…” • Include sensory details (Hemingway) and shortened sentences for emphasis (Steinbeck) • It must be at least one page in length. • If at all possible, try to write the piece while engaged in the activity you are writing about to keep the experiences fresh and the dialogue real. • Possible Examples: lunch in the cafeteria, athletic practice, a boring/exciting class, playing a video game on-line.

14. Journalism In Review • Pieces worked best that managed to capture an experience outside of normal interior monologue and one on one relationships and portray that to the readers. • Many missed sensory detail and shortened sentences. • The best journalists not only convey their experiences in a way that allows the common reader to live their journey with them, but also provide a lesson the journalist learned along the way that we can access from their shared experiences. • Put simply, they live the life and learn the lessons, then write them so well that we can experience both with them.