ABSTRACT
Mrs. Murphy knew she wanted to do something unique with her U.S. history unit on the Vietnam War, but she couldn’t take a lot of time. She loved teaching about the impact of the Vietnam War on society but she had to be realistic with her time constraints. It was already getting late in the semester and so she decided to invite a guest speaker, Marvin Roth, to tell his story and, she hoped, energize her class for a series of two or three lectures that could move the class quickly and efficiently through the unit. She hoped that maybe these lectures could even turn into question and answer sessions after students were introduced to this topic in this unique and interesting way. Some friends had referred her to Marvin and she had discussed his story with him about a month ago. He seemed like he had the engaging personality that the class would respond to and his story of being a prisoner of war in Vietnam was fascinating. Mrs. Murphy knew her class might need some help speaking up to ask Marvin questions so she encouraged them to come to class with one or two questions on a paper and to write down questions while he was speaking. She also had a collection of images that she posted around the room to help set the tone. So far, her plan seemed to be working.
