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Mrs. Krauss - G Period – A Long Way Gone – Portfolio Project due in full May 21. There are dates for each part of the project

1. Memoir - Writing your own memoir. Choose an experience or event in your life of

significance. Write a two or three page short narrative telling the details of this event and

its impact on you then and now. It can be humorous, serious, insightful, etc. Let your

personality shine through. (due April 13)

2. Music plays an important role in Ishmael’s life and in A Long Way Gone. Include the lyrics of your favorite song which relates to this book. In approximately 300 words, explain why these lyrics are meaningful to you and how they relate to the book. (due Aprill 24)

3. View one movie from the following list and write a personal response to it (300-600 words). (due April 24)

  • .Blood Diamonds from the History Channel:
  • · Bling: A Planet Rock (2007)
  • · Blood Diamond (2006)
  • · Buena Vista Social Club (1998)
  • · City of God (2002)
  • · Cry Freetown (2000)
  • · Darfur Now (2007)
  • · The Devil Came on Horseback (2007)
  • · Ezra (2007)
  • · Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda (2004)
  • · God Grew Tired of Us (2005)
  • · Hotel Rwanda (2004)
  • · Innocent Voices (2004)
  • · Johnny Mad Dog (2008)
  • · Kandahar (2001)
  • · The Last King of Scotland (2006)
  • · National Geographic ‐ Diamonds of War: Africa's Blood Diamonds (2003)
  • · Night and Fog (1955)
  • · Los Olvidados (1950)
  • · Pixote (1981)
  • · POV: Lost Boys of Sudan (2003)
  • · Pride of Lions (2009)
  • · Return to Freetown (2002)
  • · Sand and Sorrow (2007)
  • · Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire (2004)
  • · Shoah (1985)
  • · Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars (2005)
  • · Sometimes in April (2005)
  • · A Time for Drunken Horses (2000)
  • · Tsotsi (2005)
  • · War Dance (2006)
  • · Warrior of Light (2001)

4. Respond to at least two of the following interviews. It’s usual to listen to all of them and then decide how to respond. (due April 27)

A. Listen to the following interview with the author with nationally acclaimed journalist Terry Gross on her public radio program, “Fresh Air”. Write an essay or reaction paper.

  • Here is the link for the “Fresh Air” program.

B. Watch the clip from the “John Stewart Show” which is less than eight minutes. Stewart asks which was harder, losing his humanity during the war or regaining it after the war. What did Beah say, and explain his response.

C. Another exceptional face-to-face video interview with the author and George Stroumboulopoulos:

  • . This interview is with television personality, George Stroumboulopoulos.This interview is just over 10 minutes long and focuses on child soldiers as a human rights issue and the author’s experiences as a child soldier. Please respond to this interview.

D. This CBS report is also very well done. How Gold Pays for Congo's Deadly War (CBS, November 30, 2009)

E. This is an excerpt from the longer History Channel Program listed under movies:

5. Read three or more of the following articles, briefly summarizeeach and comment on its significance. (due May 1)

  1. “The Making, and Unmaking, of a Child Soldier.”
    Ishmael Beah
    New York Times Magazine, January 14, 2007
  2. Diamonds Move From Blood to Sweat and Tears”
    Lydia Polgreen
    The New York Times, March 25, 2007
  3. “Blood Diamonds: A River or a Droplet?”
    Lynne Duke
    Washington Post, December 27, 2006
  4. “War was classroom for Sierra Leone child soldiers” by Nick Tattersall
    Reuters, June 2, 2007
  5. “Sierra Leone Rebels Forcefully Recruit Child Soldiers”
    Human Rights Watch, May 26, 2000
  6. “Sierra Leone Government Troops Torture and Reportedly Execute RUF Rebel Suspects
    Human Rights Watch, May 17, 2000
  7. “Blood Diamonds-Conflict Diamonds What is the Kimberly Process”
    Geology.com,
  8. “Conflict Diamonds: Sanctions an War”
    United Nations Report
  9. “Diamonds are for Never”
    Mireya Navarro
    New York Times, December 14, 2006
  10. “Inside the RUF: at last the child soldiers of Sierra Leone have their say”
    Hannah Strange
    The Tmes Online (UK newspaper), June 16, 2008
  11. The Blood Diamond Resurfaces (Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2010:

With diamonds, the current issue is more that oppressive governments (esp. in Zimbabwe and Angola) are using violence to seize diamond wealth for themselves and their military/business allies. I'm not sure if these links are quite as compelling as the links on wars. But here are few more recent ones:)

12. Army abuses Zimbabweans to control diamond fields (Reuters, June 26, 2009)

13. Marange diamond field torture camp discovered (BBC, August 8, 2011)

Note: This website is Mrs. Krauss’s son-in-law’s company!!

Your Cell Phone, Congo's Misery (CNN, November 28, 2100).

From the guardian: Naomi Cambell and blood diamonds

Just a recent article from 2010 mentioning Charles Taylor

The Christian Science Monitor on The Ivory Coast and recent diamond exports

6. “Poetry-Slam” or “Spoken Word” activity on Sierra-Leone (due May 15)

Since the civil war, there have been a number of voices that have spoken out in the form of poetry. Read the following poems from survivors of the conflict.

Copy your favorite poem from the selection into this portfolio. Then write your own poem based on the book. You might write about a situation, a person, and/or a feeling.

7. Consider a “Spoken-Word” performance of your poem. (Optional)

8. Cover for your portfolio: Due May 15

Create a cover for your portfolio depicting aspects of Ishmael’s life.

Or Create a Diamond about your life for a cover

Your life is a diamond that you carve at each day. Demonstrate the magical illusion of geometric design as you continue your reading of Long Way Gone. You are to draw your own diamond and label its parts. Consider the table (the surface of the diamond)a goal and think of each facet as a factor in the depth of your life experience and the luminescence of your life.

  • Describe the table of your experience. What will people see when the perceive you?
  • Describe the facets beneath the table called the crown. These facets are the immediate, visible components of your life.
  • Describe the pavilion facets which make up the depth of your life experience. These are hidden beneath the surface, but they add light to your life, or if flawed, detract from the radiance.

9.Ismael Beah’s A Long Way Gone – Open Responses (due May 18)

Please think about all of these questions. Respond to two of the following questions:

  1. Consider the parables of the wild boar (pg. 53), the Bra spider (pg. 72), and the trickster monkey (pg. 217). Discuss what lessons the author learned from these stories. What lessons can we learn from these stories?
  1. Early on, Beah’s family is separated from him, and later they are killed in the war. Along his journey, Ishmael develops relationships with others who are surrogate family members, including his friends: the Lieutenant, Esther, Mohammad, his Uncle, and Laura Simms. What role do these people play in his life? How do they help him along the way? Discuss the ways in which the idea of “family” is configured, re-configured, challenged, and re-affirmed throughout the book.
  1. Although most of the book’s events occur in Sierra Leone, American culture is a pervasive theme in the memoir and in the author’s life. What positive influences does American culture have on Beah? Negatives? Consider the importance of hip hop. How does it save his life (pages, 38, 67, 169)?
  1. Nature plays a predominant role in Beah’s life and throughout the book. For example, the moon is very important to young Ishmael. Consider the conversation he recalls with his grandmother (p.15-17) where she tells him that “we must strive to be like the moon.” What does she mean by this? Comment on other references to the moon (life without – 69, 80 and life with – 166).
  1. In Sierra Leone, old men are symbols of wisdom and respect. However, early on, Beah encounters a rebel threatening an old man man (p. 33). The disrespect of elders shows Ishmael that the foundation of his community is broken by war. Consider the encounter with an old man on p. 55 – 57. What do these encounters mean and what role do they play in his life?
  1. Beah shows us how children are turned into child soldiers. Discuss these techniques. In your discussion, consider the following passages:
  1. “Over and over in our training he would say that same sentence: Visualize the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you.” (p. 112)
  1. “A young soldier came by with a plastic bag full of some kind of tablets. They looked like capsules, but they were plain white. He handed them to each of us with a cup of water. The corporal said it will boost your energy,” the soldier announced with a secretive smile on his face.” (p. 116)
  1. “In the daytime, instead of playing soccer in the village square, I took turns at the guarding posts around the village, smoking marijuana and sniffing brown brown, cocaine mixed with gunpowder, which was always spread out on the table, and of course taking more of the white capsules, as I had become addicted to them.” (p. 121)
  1. “They have lost everything that makes them human. They do not deserve to live. That is why we must kill every single one of them. Think of it as destroying a great evil. It is the highest service you can perform for your country.” (p. 108).
  1. When Beah is at the rehabilitation center, Esther helps him discuss what had happened. At the end of every discussion, she always sternly tells him that “none of these things are your fault.” Why does she say this to him? What does she mean when she says these things are not his fault? Does he believe her right away? Why or why not? Did young Ishmael have any choice in what he did? Did any of the children? In your discussion, consider the following passage:

We were now at the top of a bushy hill immediately behind the swamp, in a clearing just before the escape route. Seeing the civilians all about to make it out, the rebels fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), machine guns, AK-47s, G3s, all the weapons they had, directly into the clearing. But we knew we had no choice, we had to make it across the clearing because, as young boys, the risk of staying in town was greater for us than trying to escape. Young boys were immediately recruited, and the initials RUF were carved wherever it pleased the rebels, with a hot bayonet. This not only meant that you were scarred for life but that you could never escape from them, because escaping with the carving of the rebels’ initials was asking for death, as soldiers would kill you without any questions and militant civilians would do the same. (p. 24)

10.Choose one of the following questions: (due May 18)

  1. Ishmael’s memoir is a testament to hope, perseverance, and spirit. What universal truths does Ishmael teach us about surviving loss and overcoming isolation? What does he teach us about our own humanity? How can we take his lessons and apply them – as individuals, in our own community, and in the world ”out there”?
  2. Towards the end of the book, we learn that many of Beah’s friends returned to child soldiering. Why do you think this is? Do you think Beah would have returned to child soldiering if he had not fled to America? Why or why not?
  3. Throughout the narrative, Beah describes the systematic use of illegal drugs such as marijuana and cocaine, and how these drugs are linked to violence. Analyze the impact of this drug culture on the soldiers and people of Sierra Leone. Also relate this to what you witness in your own culture.
  4. At the end of the book, Beah includes a chronology of events in Sierra Leone. How is this information helpful in understanding the context of the civil war? Did any event particularly surprise you? Consider the arrival of Portuguese slave traders and the colonization by the British. Does this history shed any light on the motivations of the army soldiers versus those of the rebels (RUF)?

Grading for Long Way Gone Portfolio

AssignmentDue Date

______/150 Memoir 4/13

______/50 Music4/24

______/100 Movie4/24

______/100 2 Interviews4/27

_____/100 2 News articles5/1

_____/ 100 Poetry5/10

_____/ 50 Poetry Slam (optional)5/14

______/100 Cover presented5/14

_____/100 2 Open responses to the book5/17

_____/ 50 1 Opinion about the book5/17

______

_____/1050 - Portfolio due in full5//21