Since many of you don't have much information about 9/11, I thought it would be a good idea for you to acquire more background on that day and it's aftermath prior to reading the narrative presented in The 9/11 Commission Report. The Report was published in 2004, almost three years after the attacks, so its early readers experienced the report with the events fresh in their minds. While you cannot recreate that state of mind, I thought it might be helpful to read accounts of those days and months of the early post-9/11 world.
First, spend five-to-ten minutes writing down your memories of September 11, 2001. I want you to do this so you don't confuse your memories with the words and images you are about to read and view. Next, go through as much of the material below as you can in forty-five minutes to an hour. Then spend ten-to-twenty minutes putting together a response that tries to make sense of that time, a little more than ten years ago. Whatever you don't finish writing in class, you can finish before starting the homework for Wednesday, which is described in the post below.
Don DeLillo: The Terror of September 11
The Onion Responds to 9/11
9/11 and Language
The 9/11 Decade--Oral History
9/11's "Most Controversial" Photo
10 Events "More Important" than 9/11
9/11 Found Objects
Where Was I: An Interactive Map of 9/11
James Nachtwey's 9/11 Photographs
The 9/11 Decade--Artists Respond
