LAI+517+Spring+2011

Teaching Ideas for //Of Mice and Men//
Below are ideas for teaching Of Mice and Men through different lenses and stances.

**Issues of Gender and //Of Mice and Men//**
 Tara Hartmann, Jenn Maggin, Morgan Serens & Shira Zemel

**Text as Culture: Using a Gendered Lens to Explore** //**Of Mice and Men**//  **and Our Culture**

Gender is an important cultural issue to inquire into and //Of Mice and Men//  lends itself well to an exploration of gender. Curley’s wife offers important opportunities for discussions about the portrayal of women in culture; if an ELA class were to inquire into gender using //Of Mice and Men//  they would be remiss not to closely examine Curley’s wife and how her story informs our understanding of the role of women in our world. However, we have discussed Curley’s wife at length in this course, so for our gender presentation we decided to focus on the role of men in the novel: specifically, fraternal relationships, expectations we have of men, and assumptions we make about what it means to be a “man”.

**Part I** Writing Prompt: Describe a man in your life. What phrases, adjectives or descriptors to describe this man jump out? Write a few of these words or phrases on the poster sheets hanging around the room.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Part II** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Split into groups. Each group is assigned a different male character from the novel (Curley Lennie, George, Slim, Crooks & Candy). For each group to consider: How is the character portrayed in the book? How would he describe himself? How would others describe him? Write the main ideas, phrases, adjectives that jump out on the group poster sheet.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Part III** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discussion synthesizing the information gathered in the first two activities: men in our lives, men in the text, and cultural assumptions and expectations of men and male relationships in our culture.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Extensions** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Time allowing, we will show some of these clips in order to bring some popular culture texts into the discussion. We think these video clips are great resources to use when taking a text as culture approach to exploring the idea of gender, and using <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Of Mice and Men// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as the literary text.

[|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEGXtYZn7-E__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Five Friends// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> movie trailer <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Five Friends// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a documentary dealing with male friendships in our society. The trailer would be enough to get kids talking about male friendships: the ones they have, the ones they know of and the ones they see portrayed in popular culture. This would connect well with a discussion of George and Lennie.

[|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si2Qe0MHzWQ__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Clip exploring the fraternal relationship portrayed in <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//I Love You, Man// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Paul Rudd and Jason Segal are interviewed in the clip; issues of “masculinity” and “manliness” are discussed.

[|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjdWNyn9-PU__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Clip of male friendship from the film <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Superbad//