ideas for group presentation on mice and men

For Laura, Lexi, and my group presentation, on Mice and Men, our first thought for a writing assignment was to have students write an alternate ending to the book. This assignment would come at the end of the book after we had read the whole thing. This type of assignment would be fun for the students, would force them to be creative, but would also show us that they have a grasp on the book and storyline, and can make something unique from it. The ending would have to be realistic, and completely relate to the story. Nothing like...Lennie gets taken away by aliens haha.

As for a few other ideas, we were thinking of maybe doing something with the history that is taking place in the story and having the students do a writing assignment on that somehow. Ex: maybe showing them a poster or picture of 2 migrant workers back in the 1930s or 40s and having them write about what they think those workers' life was like based on the picture and their knowledge of George and Lennie's experiences.

We probably won't do this unless we can make it more of an assignment, but we were also thinking of having students write about one of their best friends who they are very different from, and explain how they became friends and how they remain friends even though they are very different. We would then have them relate that back to George and Lennie's friendship and see if there are any similarities. This would give the students a fun assignment to do, but they would still be analyzing the characters in the book and their relationship to one another.

Multigenre Paper Ideas

1) Name of topic: How to get students to enjoy reading, writing, and interpreting poetry.

2) I know a lot about poetry, literary terms, how to read and interpret poetry, etc. I also know that a lot of students don't enjoy poetry because they think it might be boring, stupid, or pointless. They don't see how it is actually in their everyday lives. I believe that a lot of students aren't taught poetry in a way that will make them enjoy it, and I want to change that.

3) I want to learn some helpful techniques or learning strategies that I could use to get students involved in poetry, and enjoying it. I have some ideas of my own already, but I would like to learn a few more.

4) I like poetry a lot now, ever since I took a class in it my sophomore year of college. However, I never really liked it in high school, partially because it wasn't taught very much, and when it was, it wasn't taught well. My teachers never made it fun, or related it to my life in any way. I think poetry is under appreciated, so I want to know more about it and I want to teach people more about it because I think a better understanding of it will lead to a better appreciation for it, and will get students to enjoy it more.

5) Questions about my topic:

-How can I get students to see the importance of poetry?

-What are all the different types and forms of poetry?

-How is poetry used in our everyday lives?

-Who are some of the most famous world-wide poets?

-How do I grade poetry if it is supposed to be creative and original?

-What do I do if students aren't buying into what I'm saying?

6) In class source: "Spoon River Anthology" - I will use the Spoon River Anthology of poems to show students a very unique and creative form of poetry, and how poetry can tell a story just like a novel or short story can.

Outside source: article on how music is related to poetry - Many students like music, but many of them don't see how it connects to (and actually is) poetry. I think making them see this will show them that poetry is actually more fun than they think.

Of Mice and Men

"Of Mice and Men," written by John Steinbeck, is really just a novel about two good friends who work together on a ranch. No, it's actually a novel about mental disabilities. Scratch that, this novel's true lens is the importance of friendship and how it is necessary to have a best friend to share your life with and help you through the tough times.

Above are only a few of the possible lenses that this book could be viewed through, though some are more realistic than others. The lens I believe that the book should be looked at through is the 3rd one that I said, about friendship. This book is centered around George and Lennie, two good friends who rely heavily on one another. They are very close and have a tight friendship. I really liked the first half of this book, though I read it back in High School, but there was a lot of details that I had forgotten that I was reminded of after reading it the 2nd time.

The students could relate to this book because of all the friendship that it focuses on. The friendship between Lennie and George is such a strong one that students will most likely think about their own friendships as they read the book, which will help them relate to it. The book is also realistic enough with enough description that students could even put themselves in the shoes of Lennie or George and imagine what it would be like to have their life.

OT Documentary

I thought that the documentary on Our Town and the students in California who put it on as a play was very interesting. It was good to see the lives of the students at the beginning and get a feel for how the school and town were. Then, going into the teacher's opinions and why they wanted to put on the play was good because it allowed us insight into their thoughts. I liked all the interviews and opinions that the film got from the students' perspective throughout the film because it was really helpful and interesting to see their thoughts on the whole thing. I also think it is great that the teachers decided to put this play on, and that the students actually cooperated. That may not always happen expecially in a "ghetto" school as they called themselves, so it was nice to see. I really liked how they added their own personal touch to the play, but still kept it realistic and original enough to make it worth while. It made me smile to see the students get so involved in it, and was definitely a good documentary to watch to get some ideas about how we can use plays in our future high school English classes as well!

Spoon River Anthology

After reading these Spoon River Anthology poems I found them to be quite interesting, and very unique compared to some of the poetry I have read before. Each poem tells its own story, but also relates to the other poems in the anthology to make one giant story. One thing I noticed about the poems are that many of them: are about death or graves, have questions posed in them, have repetition of some sort, and are about individual people.

This ties into "Our Town" in a way because Our Town had similar things in it. It was about individual people in a small town, told its own story of the town, and dealt a lot with death and dying, as the anthology does. If I were a teacher trying to use the Spoon River Anthology in a classroom where we read Our Town, I would probably stress the death aspect and have the students talk about how the poems talk about death in a similar or different way than that of Our Town. I would also point out how the anthology of poems have different people's names as their titles, and have the students explain to me the meaning behind this, what it adds to the poems, and if it makes them feel like the person in the poem is important because the whole individual poem is focused on them. Then I would have the students tell me if they think that each character in Our Town was important, and why or why not. I would end by asking them which form they liked better as a story telling method - the play or the anthology of poems - and why.

Our Town

After reading the first act of Our Town and discussing it with my fellow classmates, some thoughts came to mind. One was that the play seemed a bit plain and boring in a sense. It didn't seem to be about much other than some random people's lives. Now maybe it was written that way and is meant to be like that, but it's hard to tell. In a way that does allow readers to put themselves in the position of the characters and think about what it would be like to be those people. But sometimes it just seems like the story isn't going anywhere important. But I suppose we'll find out. I did like how the details of the town were introduced. Instead of a typical narrator just explaining how the town is, they have Mr. Webb explain it through questions from the townspeople and such. This was a unique introduction and made the story seem more realistic and showed the people's involvement with one another. I'm sure this play does have deeper and more important meaning behind it though, so hopefully those will become more clear once I read Act 2 and 3 tonight and tomorrow.

Our Town Act 1

In the first act of "Our Town," the town of Grover's Corners seems to be a normal and average town in America. The way it is portrayed and the way that the characters are described and act, this seems similar to the way that many average Americans are. I found it interesting that the birth and death rates seem to stay consistent in this town from year to year. Also the fact that there is a minimum amount of drinking that goes on in Grover's Corners is somewhat surprising.

Some of the repetition that is seen in this act is the amount of gossip that goes on between characters. For example, Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb gossip about Mrs. Gibbs' money offer from the furniture salesman, Dr. Gibbs and the paperboy gossip about the local schoolteacher's marriage, and the children have their own gossiping conversations.