All Boys, All Blogged: September 22, 2014

Focus: What is Steinbeck suggesting about power, weakness, and bullying in Chapter 4?

1. Warming up: Reading an article about a racist bully in the 7th grade

• What causes her to be a racist and a bully?

• What are the effects of her racism and bullying?

2. Acting out Chapter 4 together with a staging focus on power, weakness, and bullying

While reading...

• Which characters start the scene powerless? What do they have in common?  How can we stage them to symbolize power and weakness?

• Which characters gain power as the scene goes on?  How can we stage this?

• Which characters lose power as the scene ends?  How can we stage this?

After reading...

• What do Curley and Curley's wife, our two big bullies, have in common?

• Try out the cyclical structure chart.

• What does the structure of this scene suggest about the power and weakness of the dream?

Thesis of the day: In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses ________________ (bully's name) to illustrate how bullies want ___________________ but end up ________________________.

OR

Extra challenge: In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses the cyclical structure of Chapter 4 to illustrate _______________________________.

OR

Extra extra challenge: In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses ___________________ (pick one of the character's defects, like Candy's hands, or Crooks' back, or Lennie's mental disability) to symbolize ___________________________.

HW:
1. Please complete your reading journal or five annotations for Chapter 4 if you did not finish in class.

2. MEET IN THE FORUM TOMORROW.

2. Remember that next Friday, September 26, is the end of 6 weeks; if you have any make up work or revised assignments that you'd like to get credit on, you must submit it by 11:00 am on that Friday at the latest.