Of Mice and Men - a unique time and place

The book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is set in a unique time and place in American history, set during the Great Depression when workers migrated hopefully from town to town looking for work, and women had few options because of their lack of economic and political rights.
This site is a collection of resources on the topics of:
  • Women's rights
  • 'the Great Depression
  • migrant workers *note that migrant and immigrant are NOT the same thing.  A migrant is someone travelling within a country, whereas an immigrant travels from one country to another.  This assignment is concerned only with migrants.
View videos, virtual exhibits (online images of real collections), websites and books by clicking the categories listed both at the top of the page, and in the right sidebar.
Ms. Adamson's class must complete the following assignment:
Of Mice and Men – The Assignment
Complete each of the following three times, once for each of the three topics: the Great Depression, women's rights, and migrant workers.
  •      Create a word cloud with no less than 20 words that serves to explain the topic ~ Go to http://www.tagxedo.com/  MAKE SURE YOU USE INTERNET EXPLORER OR FIREFOX.  Sadly, Tagxedo doesn't work in Chrome. Pick only the most applicable, expressive and insightful words.  See if you can manipulate the words to be bigger or smaller based on importance, AND try to shape your word cloud into a meaningful shape.
  •      Find a historical photograph, document or artifact relating to the topic and copy a picture of it.  Then explain why you selected that artifact in 5 sentences.  Write your comments like a journal entry.  Explain your ideas with phrases like, "I chose this item because....," or "I believe this item tell a great deal about the topic, such as...."
  •      Consider a stage design as if you were going to put on a low budget production of a play with the same setting as Of MIce and Men.  Select a stage prop that would be most effective in establishing the setting for the audience.  Remember that setting establishes not only a time and a place, but also a mood.  Find an image for the prop and write about 5 sentences explaining why you chose the prop.  Again, write your comments like a journal entry.
See below for an exemplar of one third of the assignment, and a marking rubric for the assignment.

Marking Rubric - click here and the rubric document will download to your computer.

View a sample of the assignment by clicking here.  

books and ebooks...

videos

The video above requires a username and password for access.  Please ask your teacher for details.
The video above is part of a playlist.  Click in the top left of the screen to see all videos in the playlist.