Professional Literature

Johannessen, Larry R. (2003). Making history come alive with the nonfiction literature of
the vietnam war. The Social Studies, 94:4, 171-178.

In the article Making History Come Alive with the Nonfiction Literature of the
Vietnam War by Larry R. Johannessen, the author explains that rather than using fiction
to teach the Vietnam War in his English class like he had with previous wars, he started to
use nonfiction examples. Johannessen found that using nonfiction sources such as Philip
Caputos A Rumor of War profoundly engrossed his class, the aforementioned book
recommended to him by a student who had previously said he hated reading. Johannessen
explains that he realized relying on traditional literature came at the expense of engaging
his class, so he decided to explore what would happen if he assigned Caputos book and
Mark Bakers Nam to his entire class. The results were stimulating discussions in
which the students demonstrated learning very important concepts about the Vietnam
War. In addition, Johannessen makes the argument students should study nonfiction of
the Vietnam War because unlike previous wars, this was the nations first teen-age war,
which is to say the students more easily identified with the nonfiction narratives than the
fictional ones.
The intended audience of this article is educators, but specifically educators in the
humanities. While Johannessen himself is not a history teacher, his arguments resonate
with me because more often than not, I try to find some mainstream fictionalized

representation of a historical event to draw students in. For all of its historical
inaccuracies, I used a clip from Enemy at the Gates to talk about the Battle of
Stalingrad some years ago in a presentation because it was a Hollywood narrative a class
could relate to. Johannessens argument for Vietnam to be a nonfiction affair is very
persuasive and fascinating. Unfortunately, with only five days to really teach the Vietnam
War, I am more inclined to stick to primary source material such as newsreel footage of
the war. However, I think illustrating change over time in the form of music of the era can
help approximate this method.

Johannessen, Larry R. (2000). Using a simulation and literature to teach the vietnam war.
The Social Studies, 91:2, 79-83.

In the article Using a Simulation and Literature to Teach the Vietnam War by
Larry R. Johannessen, the author lays out a very interesting and unique way to illustrate
the unpredictability of the war in Vietnam: using a search and destroy simulation. By
setting up a classroom with all of these fake booby traps and splitting the class into
hierarchical teams, their engagement with the class content was strengthened. In addition,
Johannessen argues that while teaching the facts, figures and even literature pertaining to
the war is all well and good, neglecting to use a simulation like this would deprive the
students of a real connection to history. Furthermore, this simulation is made even more
profound when coupled with reading accounts (fictionalized or otherwise) of events such
as the My Lai massacre. When putting students into a simulated war with all of the
historical context of My Lai and the rest of the war, the students are able to see what it
might have been like for a grunt on a search and destroy mission.
The intended audience for this article is educators, particularly teachers in the
humanities. While I might not do a simulation that is as immersive as this (mostly due to
classroom constraints), I think Johannessens assertion that a simulation helps foster a
more thorough connectedness to content is right on the money. This kind of differentiated
learning approach to a topic as touchy as Vietnam is also particularly interesting to me
because there is a natural inclination to be very dour and traditional when teaching this
war and its atrocities. However, engaging students in a unique way like a simulation
speaks to me and definitely impacted my unit plan overall.

These particular sources, despite being more than 10 years old, were very helpful in
considering my lesson. After searching for some time, these two articles by the same
author helped me think about new ways of approaching my unit plan.