Group Activity- Of mice and men

For the 2 assignments, we decided to do an alternate ending project where they have to creatively come up with a different way to end Of Mice and Men. We thought this would be a fun way to get students to want to write and break away from the typical essay format where students may dread to write. The other assignment that we thought of was bringing in photographs of the times and having them talk about the historical context from the book. This takes place in the 1940's and we want to describe the economic times and the life of a migrant worker. Bringing in the photography can put a mental image in their minds and also have them educated of what was going on in the outside world besides simply on this farm.

Writing Amid Lit Article

While reading Writing Amid Literature Part One: Other Than Essays, I found myself agreeing with all that he had to say. I think that by not allowing students to be creative and not allowing them to break away from the dreaded essay every time, it will not allow students to enjoy the subject. Unfortunately, for many of my friends their least favorite subject was English during high school and middle school which I feel shouldn’t be the case. Students should be able to express themselves in English class because thinking about it, they cannot exactly express themselves in Math or Social Studies, the facts are the facts and many times they cannot be creative and think outside the box. Two things that I want to talk about that I could see myself doing is the idea of having them mimic an old passage or form of an author and making it their own and more modern, and also the short part on prose. One quote that really got my attention was, “Imitating the forms of professionals in fun, instructive, and confidence-building. The model usually provides just the right amount of framework to lead students into their own language” I agreed with this because I myself remember doing this. We had read a Shakespearean sonnet and then had to mimic the form, and it made me appreciate his style and diction a lot more. Lastly, I could see myself using the journal entries, news article or the fictional paper. These are very fun activities that students can do to be creative while they also have to get into the character’s heads and really understand them. Students should not hate English class and only have to write strict-style essays, but instead engage in different types of writing as well to keep English fun and enjoyable as well. 

Ideas for MGP / confusion

Although I am pretty confused about this paper, two of the topics that I am trying to focus in on are How to teach Of Mice and Men in the classroom or how to use technology in the classroom. The thing that confuses me is the 5 different genres.. Do I have to pick five different genre's that I could use to help teach Of Mice and Men? For instance, bring in a poem about friendship or have them write a newspaper article of Lennie's obituary? (those types of things). Those two topics are ones that I am interested in, and I think once I have a more clear understanding of what the 5 genre's really are all about I will be able to begin this paper.

Of Mice and Men

Two things that I focused on during this section was the bond between George and Lennie and the foreshadow and resemblance that seems to be made between Lennie and the old dog. The relationship between George and Lennie is one that people may not understand, but we see that George deep down really cares for him. George constantly is putting Lennie down, yet when it comes to leaving him behind or when Lennie says he is going to go off into the hills and live by himself, he does not let him. Without Lennie in George’s life, it would be much easier and he would not have to be on the run but he chooses to stay with him. It seems like maybe he is a family member or a brother at first, but we learn he is not related. Many people that they work with do not understand since many men do not “travel together,” but we see a close bond that the readers may not understand ourselves. Second, the old dog that is shot in this book I feel is there to foreshadow what is to come with Lennie. Lennie is compared to a dog in this book with his “paws,” and we see character traits from the dog in Lennie. They talk about how they will shoot him in the back of the head and will not know what was going on or even feel it which is important to the owner. When Lennie is compared to this old dog, we see that he is also disabled in a way like many of these people think that both of they are.