After sharing a syllabus for teaching the Vietnam War, I wanted to share a two sample assignments in this post and the next.
One of the major readings on the syllabus is Nguyễn Công Luận’s memoir, Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars. I enjoy teaching this book for a number of reasons. First, the section I assign is a rare account of the First Indochina War/Resistance War that is both available in English and reflects a Vietnamese perspective. The author vividly captures the chaos and violence of that conflict from the perspective of a child in the northern Vietnamese countryside, and the reading links up thematically to later readings about peasant experiences of the Vietnam War in the southern half of the country.
Second, I like that the book is raw and unvarnished because that makes it easier for students to analyze and critique. The author tacks back and forth between his childhood perceptions and adult perspective, and he often doesn’t distinguish between events he experienced firsthand and stories he heard from others. Perhaps most surprising, he doesn’t artfully hide his biases like other authors often do. Therefore, it’s much easier for students to recognize the author’s political agenda and the contradictions within the text. Just about all memoirs have agendas and contradictions, but it’s harder to identify those when the prose is really polished. Third, the writing in Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars is relatively easy to read, and students write better papers when they understand the reading.
This sample assignment gives students a chance to practice primary source analysis. The paper is based on a section of the memoir that students read for class, and I have intentionally built in preparatory work to help students do well on the paper. The journal for week 3 is based partly on this reading, and the journal prompt itself is very similar to first prompt on the paper assignment. Students have a chance to articulate their views on the issue in the journal, then reconsider those views when we discuss the book in class. Finally, students refine their views and craft them into an argument in the paper. I give students a choice of three prompts in part because students have told me they struggle to come up with a topic when there are no prompts. I tell students that, unlike in the journal, I grade the papers based on the quality of their argument, not on how well they answer the prompt. The prompt is just meant to be a starting point. In fact, the second prompt is actually inspired by a paper by a former student paper. Most students choose the first prompt because we discuss it in class, but some adventurous souls choose the second or third. I also give students the option to be creative and pursue a totally different topic, as long as they get my approval. Requiring my approval is a way for me to intervene before a student goes way off topic or gets too ambitious. In the two or so weeks before the paper is due, I also provide some explicit instruction in class on essay writing.
SAMPLE ASSIGNMENT: Paper #1 – Primary Source Analysis
Paper #1 will analyze Nguyễn Công Luận’s Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars. The paper should be a thesis-driven argument about a single issue or theme from the assigned pages of the book. You can follow one of the prompts below or choose your own topic. If you choose your own topic, you need to get permission from me.
Please note that you should focus exclusively on the text of Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars. The argument of the paper cannot be about the historical context and should not discuss the historical background unless it is necessary to comprehend the paper. You can assume that your audience is familiar with the history we have studied in class.
- Does Nguyễn Công Luận portray the Anti-French Resistance as an anticolonial war or a conflict between competing Vietnamese?
- Does Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars reflect Nguyễn Công Luận’s childhood experiences or does it reflect his adult perspective and his own research? How does he use either or both to persuade the reader of his reliability as a narrator?
- Nguyễn Công Luận claims that his memoir depicts the experiences of people at the bottom of society. But was he really at the bottom of society? Does his memoir betray a class bias? How so?
Format: 5-6 pages, 1 inch margin, double-spaced, Times New Roman font, 12 size font.