Johnny Got His Gun
By Dalton Trumbo
A classic tale of WWI and Pacifism
This unit covers the entire novel Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo with commentary, analysis, teaching ideas, and assignments or worksheets for each chapter. This is a wonderful novel to use in conjunction with WWI. The students like it, it is well-written with many literary conventions, and it supports future units in American history and literature such as American isolationism, the Hollywood Ten during the Cold War, and anti-Vietnam War protests. Because it has a complex narrative structure, it requires teacher facilitation.
I have taught this novel for many years, and a benefit of that is that I have become a genuine expert on the book and what students think and gain from it. I have found that this novel is excellent for reluctant readers. For a long time, there were no teaching guides available for the book at all, and the movie is obscure. I saw this as very positive because there were no shortcuts available to the students—they had no choice but to read. Now there are Spark Notes available over the Internet. The majority of this 40-page unit consists of many keen insights and teaching and essay ideas not mentioned at all in the Spark Notes.
My philosophy is that I do not wish to indoctrinate students in any way. I accept whatever opinions they have, asking only that they be critical and informed. This book helps them think about and consider the history of many issues including pacifism, the idea of a “just war,” Communism, freedom of speech, the draft, what comprises patriotism, isolationism, our current military actions, euthanasia, civil disobedience, propaganda, and the effects of technological progress. It does so through the thoughts of one of the most haunting and appealing characters in all of American literature, Joe Bonham.
In addition to the books, you will need two sound recordings to teach this book. The first is One by Metallica. The second is a copy of Over There from the WWI era. My recording is from our history textbook publisher and was made by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I also provide the lyrics for these songs to the class.
Please see contents below.
Contents
I. Introduction
A. The Cover—what does it mean?
B. “One” by Metallica—many students who hate to read do love this song and will be highly motivated to see what it’s about.
C. Synopsis—What to tell students so they won’t get lost in the first chapter
D. Narrative Structure—A necessary discussion before students begin
E. A Caution—Curtail problems for yourself before you even begin
II. Chapters
A. Each chapter has teaching ideas. If the students need preview information before reading, this guide will tell you what and how. It also gives ideas for debriefing after students have read.
B. Some chapters include entire worksheets, others just short questions. All answers are also included.
C. Each chapter has in-depth analysis of Trumbo’s thesis, themes, symbolism, imagery, ironies, and techniques.
D. Many chapters point out connections and supports to other topics in history.
E. Some chapters cite other works of literature and film for enrichment.
F. Chapters in general do not have summaries of the plot.
III. About Dalton Trumbo
IV. Essay Ideas—most are for literary analysis, but one idea is for history.
V. Conclusion
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
Maybe you could include the title significance, themes, motifs, and symbols for deeper analysis. I really liked your product and its helping me in teaching this novel. Thanks for sharing.
January 30, 2011
For the title, please see pp. 13 and 37. For motifs, please see pp. 5, 9, 16, 28, 33, 34, and 36. For symbols, please see pp. 9, 12, 18, 19, 22, 30 31, 39 and 40. Themes are on pp. 3, 9, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 31, 33, 37, 39 and 40. Thank you for your kind comment, and I hope this helps.
February 2, 2011
Thank you, Ms. Anderson, for this gift of planning. Having been given this novel with so few days to prep, I was in a tizzy. Not only do I feel ready, I am excited to delve into this novel that had gotten dusty on the back shelves of my mental library.
January 30, 2010
An impeccable avenue of learning. Superbly thought out and designed. If one requires additional space for student input, one may simply edit the provided electronic file - fully customizable, rather than in PDF format. Different from other lesson plans available on the same topic. Well done!
June 28, 2008
This was a great lesson plan. It was put together with absolute accuracy and was very easy to utilize and follow.
March 8, 2008
This unit consists of commentary and questions for each chapter. The worksheets are not very user friendly (for example; chapter one has a chart but it is too small for the students to write in) and I thought that the questions were not very helpful in terms of aiding the students in comprehension. I would suggest sparknotes instead.
February 14, 2008
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I have taught for 14 years. Three of those were in middle school, but the rest have been in high schools. I teach at an innovative high school in Rio Rancho, NM, which is a rapidly-growing suburb of Albuquerque. I helped open the high school ten years ago. It combines English and Social Studies for all students. I teach American Humanities in the Fine Arts Academy. I have helped develop the district's Humanities curriculum every summer for ten years. I serve as the 11th grade Humanities section leader. I am fortunate to work with an outstanding group of educators.
