The Things They Carried
By Peter Johnson

Overview
     This is an activity to be used along with the reading of the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. It's set up for them to be able to look at things in more realistic terms, by experiencing some of the detail from the book.

Goals
     I want students to gain an understanding of what it's like to “hump” the weight that these men carried.

Materials
     To do this activity we would need a framed backpack and something (probably rocks) to simulate the approximate weight that these soldiers felt day in and day out. For added emphasis I could give the students different roles (like the ones described in the book and they could take on these different weights individually.

Activities
     Similar to what I've already talked about, the students after reading the part of the book entitled “The Things They Carried”, would put on the backpack and simulate what it's like to have to carry the weight that these soldiers carried. They talk about the different roles in the platoon so different students could play different roles. They also talk about the individual things that each of these men carried, perhaps to simulate that, students can bring in personal things to add to their own load.

Accommodation
     The largest problem could come here with students who aren't able to carry the load. Realistically the best way to pull this off would be to load the weight in a bit at a time and if the student feels like it's more than they can stand, then we can back off the weight so that they can be comfortable, and still have a sort of understanding of how demanding the trek was.

Assessment
     I think writing would be appropriate here, perhaps before and after to get the students impressions at both times.

Extension
     I think a wonderful thing to do would be to take the students on a extra-curricular hike, through a wilderness area. Have the students load their backpacks with weight so that they ca really feel the effects of walking and being alert with all of the weight on their backs.