Paginatitel

tig’s student site

by Arundhati Roy.

Find a useful study guide here. Roy reads from TGOST. Watch an insightful 30-minute documentary film on Kathakali and tourism. Read about Kathakali here and here. Learn about the Caste system. Since the publication of her first and so far only novel, Roy has spoken and written on many other platforms. She invariably questions international politics and was awarded the Sidney Peace Prize (not to be confused with the ‘official’ (Nobel) Peace Prize.

"Arundhati Roy has been recognised for her courage in campaigns for human rights and for her advocacy of non-violence, as expressed in her demands for justice for the poor, for the victims of communal violence, for the millions displaced by the Narmada dam projects and for her opposition to nuclear weapons," the jury's citation read.

Read Roy’s acceptance speech, entitled “Peace and the New Corporate Liberation Technology” here. Her political activism can be traced through this site.

On YouTube, you can hear her speak on Instant Mix Democracy, on the invasion of Iraq in “The Day of the Jackals” and there’s a documentary based on her ideas, We.

by Tim O'Brien.

Find an index to terms in the novel here. A collection of short stories and essays rather than a novel, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Also recommended to TOK students, for its multiple views on truth in relation to literature.

Related material:

A timeline of the Vietnam War can be found here. A YouTube 4-part history of the Vietnam War begins with this part. More extensive information here, from PBS, (Public Broadcasting Service, U.S.A), a highly recommended many-layered site. Take some time to discover the wealth of material. Read the pocket rule cards carried by the soldiers. Read the documents relating to the court martial of William L. Calley, responsible for the My Lai massacre, especially the witness statements. Read an article on the connection between O’Brien and My Lai. Listen to or read the transcript of Tim O’Brien’s keynote lecture delivered at Brown University. Watch his latest interview.

A novel and film dealing with the start of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, is The Quiet American, by Graham Greene. You can even read the 1962 program of the people’s revolutionary party of Vietnam (Viet Cong) Oh, and if you’re wandering why soldiers should carry strobe lights, here’s your answer.

Youtube: Vietnam war songs by Billy Joel, Country Joe and the Fish, and a song by John Prine.

english a1

the things they carried

SYLLABUS AND ASSESSMENT

ASSESSMENT CRITERA

the god of small things

by Kurt Vonnegut.

This novel is a perfect companion to The Things They Carried, as it struggles with the same inability to tell the truth about war as O’Brien’s work. Vonnegut’s work is an account of the bombing of Dresden in WWII, but Vonnegut’s hero, Billy Pilgrim, prefers to forget what happened there, opting for travels to the planet Tralfamadore instead. On the Vonnegutweb, do not forget to read one or two commencement addresses, and something about sunscreen. Here too An online study guide can be found HERE. The raid happened 60 years ago. Read comments from pilots.

by Heinrich Böll. Few sites. To get an idea of Böll ‘s model for The News, go to BILD. For information on the terrorist scare in 1970s Germany, read about the Baader Meinhof Group, also known as The Red Army Fraction. Wikipedia entry on the novel. Trailer for the film made in 2008.

A U.S. film using Böll’s novel loosely is The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck. The Baader-Meinhof group have been substituted for The Weathermen.

This section fulfils the non-fiction requirements of the A1 programme.

We will read Dorfman’s “Open Letter to America” and probably also selections from his memoir Heading South, Looking North, a memoir of his linguistic and political development. A site dedicated to Dorfman’s life and work is here. Axis of Logic have archived Dorfman’s Civil Rights/Human Rights article.

Three short films with Dorfman’s views on the other 9/11, security, and voting on this site.