Chapter 1 is an introduction and jumps right into action. Chapter 2 then flashes way back and tells Johnnie's story of how he decided to join up in high school. Chapter 3 is where basic training starts, and the early training portion of the book continues through chapter 6, with a significant moment coming near the end of that chapter. 7-9 detail later training after the cadre has been formed and all the fluff has washed out. 10 & 11 detail Johnnie's first few drops that take place before Chapter 1 and you finally catch back up to real time by Chapter 12.
So if I were structuring a reading list with the intent of discussing the book, I would break it into those sections. Not coincidentally, each of those sections has a pretty specific lesson he tries to impart.
1&2 - Discuss the nature of war and the efficacy of violence as a tool. Touch on how young men are motivated.
3-6 - The importance of volunteerism, discipline, and the necessity of punishment as a training tool. Talk about how effective training is sometimes indistinguishable from torture and how that relates to volunteerism. Discuss how the world in which we live is not even close to a complete picture. Examine the concept of value and how and why it is applied.
7-9 - Discipline, Duty, and Responsibility. When you read it you will know what to talk about.
10-11 - Esprit de Corps and a return to the concept of value
12 - This is a long chapter that deserves its own discussion. In my view, the most important point it makes is, despite the entire book being very much a screed against Communism, that there is a way that you can implement a government so as to get close to the stated goal of Communism by creating a strict filtering mechanism for those who are to govern. Compare the failures of all the several types of governance in history to the structure posited by the book, and further compare that to the structure utilized by the Bugs (Hint: It's Communism and it works brilliantly for a very specific reason).
13 & 14 - Chapter 13 is essentially one giant action set-piece designed to bring all the lessons from the rest of the book together and is essentially Heinlein's proof of his prior theses. Discuss how all the lessons interact and how or why they can/cannot work in our society today. 14 is just a nice bow on the story.
This is a relatively short book, s you can easily combine some sections, but I would keep 1-2 as an intro for sure. You could then do 3-9 since that group of chapters is the "training" section of the book. You could also combine 10-14, although those are longer chapters and there is quite a bit of philosophical meat in there.
Chapter 1 is an introduction and jumps right into action. Chapter 2 then flashes way back and tells Johnnie's story of how he decided to join up in high school. Chapter 3 is where basic training starts, and the early training portion of the book continues through chapter 6, with a significant moment coming near the end of that chapter. 7-9 detail later training after the cadre has been formed and all the fluff has washed out. 10 & 11 detail Johnnie's first few drops that take place before Chapter 1 and you finally catch back up to real time by Chapter 12.
So if I were structuring a reading list with the intent of discussing the book, I would break it into those sections. Not coincidentally, each of those sections has a pretty specific lesson he tries to impart.
1&2 - Discuss the nature of war and the efficacy of violence as a tool. Touch on how young men are motivated.
3-6 - The importance of volunteerism, discipline, and the necessity of punishment as a training tool. Talk about how effective training is sometimes indistinguishable from torture and how that relates to volunteerism. Discuss how the world in which we live is not even close to a complete picture. Examine the concept of value and how and why it is applied.
7-9 - Discipline, Duty, and Responsibility. When you read it you will know what to talk about.
10-11 - Esprit de Corps and a return to the concept of value
12 - This is a long chapter that deserves its own discussion. In my view, the most important point it makes is, despite the entire book being very much a screed against Communism, that there is a way that you can implement a government so as to get close to the stated goal of Communism by creating a strict filtering mechanism for those who are to govern. Compare the failures of all the several types of governance in history to the structure posited by the book, and further compare that to the structure utilized by the Bugs (Hint: It's Communism and it works brilliantly for a very specific reason).
13 & 14 - Chapter 13 is essentially one giant action set-piece designed to bring all the lessons from the rest of the book together and is essentially Heinlein's proof of his prior theses. Discuss how all the lessons interact and how or why they can/cannot work in our society today. 14 is just a nice bow on the story.
This is a relatively short book, s you can easily combine some sections, but I would keep 1-2 as an intro for sure. You could then do 3-9 since that group of chapters is the "training" section of the book. You could also combine 10-14, although those are longer chapters and there is quite a bit of philosophical meat in there.
And the reason is: they're bugs.
that's a bingo