Chapter 26- The Sacrifice

As you listen to this song and read its lyrics, think about how it exemplifies the stories in Chapter 26.

Steinbeck's Turtle- Ch. 22

One symbol that is referred to numerous times in The Grapes of Wrath is the land turtle. We first meet him in chapter 3 as he attempts to make his way across the highway as he foreshadows to the reader the journey of the Joads and many other families just like them.

Your task today is to analyze this symbol through Chapter 22. Why does Steinbeck keep coming back to this creature as he unfolds the story of the Joads and other migrant families?

A few facts about land turtles to help you make some connections:

1. The land turtle is characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield to their bodies.

2. Like other reptiles, turtles are ectotherms which means they can vary their internal temperature according to the environment.

3. Most turtles that spend most of their life on land have their eyes looking down at objects in front of them.

4. Turtles are thought to have exceptional night vision due to the unusually large number of rod cells in their retinas.

5. Turtles do not molt their skins all in one go, as snakes do, but continuously, in small pieces.

6. Land turtles have short, sturdy feet. They are well-known for moving slowly, in part because of their heavy, cumbersome shell, which restricts their stride length.

Against the Wind

As the Joads faced the final leg of their journey to the Promised Land, we saw clearly how much adversity has plagued this family.

For example in Chapter 18 we see several examples of how this new land, this Promised Land, does not even want the Joads or others like them to be there to the point that is wears on even Ma.....


So how does a person or a family keep going on in spite of the adversity? What causes some people to keep going while others give up? And where do you see yourself along this continuum of perseverance.....do you keep fighting and moving no matter what? Or do you quickly give up and move on?

Face(s) of Humanity, Part 2

Now that you have a good understanding of what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects, you are going to find out what people in the community believe about it. Do they share your opinions about the definition of humanity and what (all) humanity deserves?

GROUP TASK:

Choose 5 Articles from the UDHR.
Translate them into Danish.
Go out and talk to people (in English or Danish, as appropriate.)
Show them what ONE (or more) Article says.
Ask if they agree or disagree with the verbiage.
Ask why.
Write down the responses, as well as each person's first name, age, and nationality.

Each group must have NO LESS than TWENTY interviews.

Bring your data to class on 13 September.

The Face(s) of Humanity

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

WATCH THESE PERSONAL DEFINITIONS OF FREEDOM & LIBERTY from around the world (as they relate to the language of Article 1). Do you agree with this definition? How much is this rhetoric a reality? In Denmark? In the world as a whole? In the time of the Joads?

Your TASK:
Using Chapter 15 and the character of Mae as your point of departure, find the
FACE(S) of HUMANITY in The Grapes of Wrath. Refer to all 30 Articles of the UDHR as needed. Were the human rights of the Joads and other families like them violated (based on what you know through Chapter 15)?

Headed out on Route 66- Ch. 12-14

Listen to this song and the message of the lyrics.....how can you connect it to the story of the Joads and so many others who are on Route 66, headed to their Promised Land?





All The Right Moves Lyrics

All the right friends in all the wrong places
So yeah, we're going down
They've got all the right moves in all the right faces
So yeah, we're going down

Just paint the picture of a perfect place
They've got it better than what anyone's told you
They'll be the King of Hearts, and you're the Queen of Spades
And we'll fight for you like we were your soldiers

I know we've got it good
But they've got it made
And the grass is getting greener each day
I know things are looking up
But soon they'll take us down
before anybody's knowing our name.

They've got all the right friends in all the right places
So yeah, we're going down
We've got all the right moves and all the wrong faces
So yeah, we're going down
They said, everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
Yeah, we're going down
They said, everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
Yeah, we're going down

Do you think I'm special?
Do you think I'm nice?
Am I bright enough to shine in your spaces?
Between the noise you hear
And the sound you like
Are we just sinking in an ocean of faces?

It can be possible that rain can fall,
Only when it's over our heads
The sun is shining everyday, but it's far away
Over the world is death.

They've got,
They've got all the right friends in all the wrong places
So yeah, we're going down
We've got all the right moves and and all the wrong faces
So yeah, we're going down

They said, everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
Yeah, we're going down
They said, everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going
http://www.elyricsworld.com/all_the_right_moves_lyrics_one_republic.html
Yeah, we're going down

It doesn't matter what you see.
I know i could never be
Someone that looks like you.
It doesn't matter what you say
I know i could never face
someone that could sound like you.

All the right friends in all the wrong places
So yeah, we're going down
We've got all the right moves and all the wrong faces
So yeah, we're going down

All the right friends in all the wrong places
So yeah, we're going down
We've got all the right moves and all the wrong faces
So yeah, we're going down

They said, everybody knows everybody knows where we're going
Yeah we're going down
They said, everybody knows everybody knows where we're going
Yeah we're going down

AT8- A Study of Terrorism

As we begin AT8, a study of Terrorism, it is important to understand what about this topic makes it worthy of our energy, our lessons, and our research.

The history of terrorism began long before the attacks of 9/11, but it was following this day that terrorism became one of the most talked about topics in school classrooms, office buildings, government policy documents, and family get-togethers...so much so that the first ten years of the 21st century have been marked as the "Decade of Terrorism".

There are many different definitions of the word "terrorism", but they all seem to share one common meaning:
1. the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear;

2. the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion;

3. the deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response through the suffering of the victims in the furtherance of a political or social agenda; Violence against civilians to achieve military or political objectives.


Terrorism is an emotional topic-- both because experiences of terrorist acts arouse tremendous feelings, and because those who see terrorists as justified often have strong feelings concerning the rightness of the use of violence.

Our main challenge in understanding Terrorism is both acknowledging the moral outrage at terrorist acts, while at the same time trying to understand the rationale behind the terrorism. Or should we? Is it our responsibility to understand the rationale? Watch this clip from the film "Crossing Over" and see what you think about "hearing" the reasons for terrorist acts....

GOW Writing Assignment #1

Writing Assignment #1- The Grapes of Wrath

First--
Watch the following youtube about one man's view of how the story of the Grapes of Wrath is being repeated in the 21st century.




Second--
Watch the youtube excerpt from Michael Moore's documentary "Sicko" where he takes a group of US Citizens without healthcare (who also happen to be 9/11 rescue workers)who cannot get treatment in the US to a different kind of "promised land".




Your writing task is a response.....
What do you think about the idea that the Grapes of Wrath is being repeated in the 21st century? What about this idea of people who need help in the US not being able to get it? The theme we are currently studying is the "American Dream", but both of these clips are lacking "dream-like" elements.

Using the first 11 chapters of The Grapes of Wrath, these 2 youtube videos, and your own knowledge and the current situation in the world (based on news sources that you have read/heard) and write a PERSONAL RESPONSE, as if it were a "Letter to the editor". A "letter to the editor" of a major newspaper is PERSONAL, PASSIONATE, and ARTICULATE. You must communicate your opinion about something in a way that others will pay attention to it and hopefully be motivated to ACTION.

Guidelines:
No less than 2 full pages, double spaced
Must have at least 2 text citations from The Grapes of Wrath (noted in the footnotes and on a bibliograpy page)
Must have at least 1 citation from a news source (Danish, American, or others)
Must be written from the 1st person perspective
Must be written in a way that I am moved......

Leaving Oklahoma

Listen to this song by Chris Knight called "Broken Plow" as it tells the story of the migrant farmer who has been forced to leave his home. How does the song make you feel? What emotions does it evoke from within you? What does it make you think of from The Grapes of Wrath (especially chapters 10 & 11) as you listen to the lyrics and to the melody?



Load up the old Dodge truck
We’ll leave what we can’t sell
Nobody needs a sharecropper’s tools
or a dust filled well
Take you one last look around
shed you one last tear

For the broken plow, the broken dreams
And the life we’re leaving here

Pull the lines down tight
The kids can ride on top of the load
In the cool of the night
They can crawl underneath the tarp
To stay out of the cold
Eleven hundred miles of mountain and sand
We’ll cross ‘em tired and torn
If this beat up truck can carry us
Far enough away from the storm


We’re going to California
There’s work there for a man
Too proud to beg for charity
Too poor to make a stand
Pray it’s just the land we’re losing
Not my life’s blood that I leave
On the handles of that broken plow
That haunts me in my dreams

A man at a roadside station
Don’t like dealing with my kind
He’d beat me out of my last dollar
And never look me in the eye
I heard ‘em call us Okies
Hell I don’t know what that means
But something tells me the promised land
Ain’t as promising as it seems

We’re going to California
There’s work there for a man
Too proud to beg for charity
Too poor to make a stand
Pray it’s just the land we’re losing
Not my life’s blood that I leave
On the handles of that broken plow
That haunts me in my dreams


This restless road is full of strangers
They ain’t no stranger than I am
Hardened faces damn the dust and curse the wind
That drove us from this life and home
We’ll never know again

We’re going to California
There’s work there for a man
Too proud to beg for charity
Too poor to make a stand
Pray it’s just the land we’re losing
Not my life’s blood that I leave
On the handles of that broken plow
That haunts me in my dreams

The Joads' Blvd of Broken Dreams

Discuss how this song is representative of The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9.
Have you ever been in a situation like the farmers in Chapter 9? How do these kinds of situations affect you as a person? As a family? As a parent?

This Land is Your Land, right??

Woody Guthrie is known for the songs he wrote about the same time that the Joads and many other families were experiencing what we see in the story.....


Bruce Springsteen, as well as a few others, did a remake of Woody Guthrie's old song "This land is your land"...considered to be one of the greatest songs in American history....

Before singing it recently at a concert , Bruce said that he is not sure if this song is true anymore, but that it "oughta be"...

Listen and reflect on the words Woody Guthrie wrote as Springsteen sings....

Do you hear promise? or despair?

Do you hear hope? or disappointment?

What caused these emotions in the hearts of the people of this time?

The GOW Family

What is your definition of "family"? Is a family made up of only relatives or are there others that could be included? What keeps a family together? And of what importance is family today as compared to the time of the Joads?

The Family Portrait, Pink

The Ghost of Tom Joad

Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about The Grapes of Wrath protagonist, Tom Joad. In fact, it was the title track for his album in 1995.

For most song writers this might be a strange topic for a song or for an album, but Springsteen tends to write lyrics that are about real life in America....about the working man...about the struggles that people go through in their everyday lives.

"The Ghost Of Tom Joad"
Man walks along the railroad track
He's Goin' some place, there's no turnin' back
The Highway Patrol chopper comin' up over the ridge
Man sleeps by a campfire under the bridge
The shelter line stretchin' around the corner
Welcome to the New World Order
Families sleepin' in their cars out in the Southwest
No job, no home, no peace, no rest, NO REST!
And The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody is to where it goes
I'm sitting down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the Ghost of Tom Joad

He pulls his prayer book out of a sleepin' bag
The preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
He's waitin' for the time when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
With a one way ticket to the promised land
With a hole in your belly and a gun in your hand
Lookin' for a pillow of solid rockBathin' in the cities' aqueducts
And The highway is alive tonight
Nobody's foolin' nobody is to where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the Ghost of old Tom Joad

Now Tom Said; "Ma, whenever ya see a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry new born baby cries
Whereever there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me ma' I'll be there
Wherever somebodies stuglin' for a place to stand
For a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody is strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes ma, You'll see me!
And the highway is alive tonight
nobody's foolin' nobody is to where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
With the Ghost of Tom Joad.

Your group's task is to analyze the music of the Boss, Bruce Springsteen. His WEBSITE has a comprehensive list of all of his albums, songs, and lyrics. You must find between 12 and 15 Springsteen songs that tell ONE PROTAGONIST'S STORY. Choose a "person" and find lines from 12-15 songs that "weave" his story.....

You should not use the full lyrics from all the songs you choose, but you must choose 12-15 "pieces" (one line/sentence from each song you choose) that you can put together to tell the story from beginning to end... where the story begins, what he/she experiences along the way, and what those experiences do to him/her. You are actually DEVELOPING A PLOT that builds as you add one more element........

You must:

1. Introduce the character
2. and introduce the setting (Either #1 or #2 can come first...)
3. Then you will create actions/conflicts/situations for the character to experience
4. as you build up the rising action to the climax (highpoint) of the story
5....which leads to the falling action
6. ....and finally the denouement (resolution)... The Denouement is derived from the term in French and Latin for "untying the knot".... It may not be an ending that your character wanted, but it is a resolution from the events/struggles.

(Note: There is a "search the lyrics" feature that will help you find key words or phrases to get started.)

After you put these together to tell your story, you will tell it to the class as an electronic story book.....(using PPT or another format). Each piece (from each song) should have its own slide. AS you present it to us, one person will read the text as it cycles through the slideshow but with no commentary or explanation.....just the lyrics as they tell the story.

The Protagonist

Before we can really understand TOM JOAD from The Grapes of Wrath, we must understand WHO the protagonist is in a story and what purpose he/she serves.
What is the reader/viewer expected to "do" with the protagonist?

Who is the protagonist is this story:


How do you KNOW he/she is the protagonist?

GOW- the TITLE & its symbolism

John Steinbeck took the name for his novel from a very well-known song in US History "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".

First read through the lyrics and talk with your group about where you think the title came from. What kind of tone do you think the words set?

Then listen to the song as you read the lyrics again and see if the tone of the music helps you decide why he chose a line from THIS SONG to represent 570+ pages....

Question of Humanity

As we enter this study of "The Face(s) of Humanity", look at this picture recently released by the Dansk Folkeparti and share what you think about when you see this image.

Introduction to the GOW

The situation:
Due to a situation beyond your control,your family is being forced to leave the only home you have ever known; the place where you and your siblings have all grown up; the place you come to at the end of a long day when you just need a place where you feel safe; home....

The dilemma:
You cannot take everything with you. There is very limited space in the truck that will move your family, so you have to prioritize what you will take and what you will leave. You can only take what you can carry by yourself.

The questions:
What do you take with you and why?
And what things would be the hardest to leave behind?

FTKMF Parts 7 & 8 Timed Writing

Ten Minute Timed Writing
Parts 7 & 8

Loung refers to their escape to Thailand as part of the "human export operation" (page 216). Explain how she and Meng made it from Cambodia to America and your opinion of the process...... should it have been done differently so that the refugees were better cared for? Or was this the best (and only) way?

FTKMF Part 6 Timed Writing

Ten Minute Timed Writing
Part 6 (Chapters 18-21)

Describe the RESOURCEFULNESS of the 3 Ung children (Kim, Chou, Loung) after they are reunited again.

FTKMF Part 5 Timed Writing

Ten Minute Timed Writing
Part 5 (Chapters 14-17)

Describe the use (and power) of propaganda in this section.

FTKMF Part 3 Timed Writing

Ten Minute Timed Writing
Part 3 (Chapters 7-9)

Describe the Angkar's view of Capitalists and why the Western World was seen as such a threat.

FTKMF Part 2 Timed Writing

Ten Minute Timed Writing
Part 2 (Chapters 4-6)

Describe Loung's behavior in these chapters. Is her behavior that of a "typical five year old"?

FTKMF Part 1 Timed Writing

Ten Minute Timed Writing-

Part 1 (Chapters 1-3)


Describe "Loung's Cambodia" as she presents it to us in the first two chapters.

An Introduction to The Killing Fields

This film was released in 1984 and follows the story of an American journalist, Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran, his Cambodian interpreter and fellow journalist. They have been working in the Cambodia, reporting the events of the civil war that was going on in the early 1970s. However, in 1975 everything changed.




On April 17, 1975, Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh, fell under the control of the Khmer Rouge, the communist guerilla group led by Pol Pot. They forced all city residents into the countryside and to labor camps. During the three years, eight months, and 20 days of Pol Pot’s rule, Cambodia faced its darkest days, an estimated 2 million Cambodians or 30% of the country’s population died by starvation, torture or execution. Almost every Cambodian family lost at least one relative during this gruesome holocaust.

________________________________________
Pol Pot's Year O

Pol Pot declared 'Year Zero' when Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. He immediately directed a ruthless program to "purify" Cambodian society of capitalism, Western culture, religion and all foreign influences. He wanted to create Cambodia into an isolated and totally self-sufficient state. Anyone who opposed was killed. Foreigners were expelled, embassies closed, and the currency abolished. Markets, schools, newspapers, religious practices and private property were forbidden. The police, public servants, military officers, teachers, ethnic Vietnamese, Christian clergy, Muslim leaders, members of the Cham Muslim minority, members of the middle-class and the educated were identified and executed.

The country's entire population was forced to relocate to the agricultural labor camps, the so-called "killing fields". Inmates lived in primitive conditions. Families were separated. Former city residents were subjected to unending political indoctrination and brainwashing. Children were encouraged to spy on adults, including their parents.

An estimated 1.5 - 3 million worked or starved to death, died of disease or exposure, or were executed for committing crimes. These crimes which were punishable by death included: not working hard enough, complaining about living conditions, collecting or stealing food for personal consumption, wearing jewelry, engaging in sexual relations, grieving over the loss of relatives or friends and expressing religious sentiments
________________________________________

It is at this point we find Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran. Sydney has been sent back to the United States, but his Cambodia colleague is forced to stay and sent to a work camp in the Killing Fields. Sydney is struggling to understand just who is responsible for these atrocities while his friend is struggling to stay alive.
________________________________________

An Intro to FTKMF

Watch the following photo story and answer these questions:

What do you see?
What do you know?
What do you feel?
What do you wonder?






The Cambodian Killing Fields lasted 3 years and 8 months and 20 days. But what were they? Who were the victims? And who were the guilty parties that caused them?

All of these questions, as well as many others, will be answered as we follow the journey of Loung Ung in

Raisin in the Sun...Twittered

Introducing a new literary innovation......
TWITTERATURE
....retelling some of the world's greatest stories in 20 "tweets" or less, and the only rule is that a tweet can have no more than 140 characters.


Click below for Twitterature Versions of Dan Brown & JK Rowling's great works-

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
@CatholicGuilt


OR

Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
@NotoriousHP


But what are people saying about TWITTERATURE?

"Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Shakespeare, rolling over in his grave." – The Wall Street Journal

"A tool to aid the digestion of great literature" – Guardian

"Fans of the classics will either be delighted or appalled." – Guardian.co.uk/media

Are these guýs brilliant or lazy? Neither? Or both?
One thing is for sure...you must really know a story well to be able to twitter it in a way that the real story is maintained. Let's see how well you can do it.

Writing assignment for A Raisin in the Sun-- TWITTER the PLAY.
Retell me the story of the Younger family in the same way these two 19 year olds retold classics like Hamlet, Pride & Prejudice, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

You must have AT LEAST 15 TWEETS but NO MORE THAN 20 TWEETS.
Each tweet cannot exceed 140 characters.
If you use any abbreviations, you must give an explanation for each at the END of your story.
Your twitterature version of A Raisin in the Sun must take me from the Act 1, Scene 1 to Act 3 and must include the events/scenes/quotes that are critical to the storyline.

Still I Rise

What connections can you make between the Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and this poem by Maya Angelou?

African Americans get the vote....

Once African Americans were given the right to vote, less than 5% of them actually exercised that right because southern states set up literacy tests that had to be passed in order to vote. For the white man, these tests were not a problem, but for a black man or woman these tests were a huge barrier. After years and years of slavery followed by years of inequity in education and schooling, many blacks did not know how to read or write. This helped the white man ensure that although the black man had the right to vote, he would never be able to act on it.....

Because of these situations throughout the south, many Civil Rights' activists were determined to make a change. They set up voting clinics throughout the south were they worked with African Americans, helping them to pass the literacy tests and become officially registered to vote. Their efforts were met with violent repression from state and local lawmen, White Citizens' Council, and Ku Klux Klan resulting in beatings, hundreds of arrests and the murder of several voting activists as seen in this clip from the film "Mississippi Burning".




After watching this clip, discuss in your groups how it is possible to have laws on paper that are not enforced in practice. What examples of hypocrisy do we see in government and policy in the 1960s and still today? How can this double standard be stopped? Or can it be?

Ending Jim Crow??

The only way to ensure that the past and its mistakes do not repeat themselves is to educate ourselves about the "stories" that occurred.... One such example of this is the story of Medgar Evers, Civil Rights Activist.

Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that read "Jim Crow Must Go," Evers was struck in the back with a bullet fired from rifle near his home his Jackson, Mississippi. He staggered 30 feet before collapsing. He died at a local hospital 50 minutes later, just hours after President John F. Kennedy's speech on national television in support of civil rights.



Your task:
Think about the price people have paid in the fight for freedom, equity, and peace....many of them, the ultimate price which is human life. So why fight if the risk can be so great? Is this fight really about achieving an American Dream or is it something altogether different? Something bigger?

As a group you must research one person who fought in this fight in the 1960s for equality and acceptance for the African Americans. You will ultimately present your person to the class in a formal presentation, but right now, your focus must be on finding your person. You will be given the guidelines for your presentation the next time we meet and the only rule is that you cannot choose Martin Luther King, Jr. as your person.

Your job will be to bring this person alive to the class and tell his/her story in a way that after the presentation is over, we feel as if we "know" this person. For now.... agree on a person and be ready to present the name to me at the beginning of the next class. It would be a good idea to have a second and third choice just in case another group chooses your person ahead of you.....

Jim Crow Laws....seriously??

The Civil War in the United States was fought from 1861-1865.
In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln signed the

which formally abolished slavery in the United States and declared all men free when it said:

"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free...."

So how is it possible that ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER, the Jim Crow Laws could still be in effect?

Your group's task:

Look at each of the following pictures which are examples of Jim Crow Laws throughout the southern United States in the 20th century.

How do they make you feel?

What do they make you want to do/say when you see them?

What about statements such as these about Jim Crow Laws:

1. One rationale for the systematic exclusion of Black Americans from southern public society was that it was for their own protection.....

2. Allowing Blacks in White schools would mean constantly subjecting them to adverse feelings and opinions which would not be fair for them to experience....

How do these make you feel when you hear them? What could members of society do to actually change these opinions, these laws, and these ways of thinking?!!? Could they do anything?

Who was Jim Crow?

It is important to understand what was happening in the US at the time that A Raisin in the Sun is set and the place to start the understanding is finding out... WHO WAS JIM CROW?

Task 1- Describe this picture of "Jim Crow" and discuss in your group how you feel when you look at it. Are the feelings positive, negative, happy, entertaining, degrading, or something else? Why?


If you were to learn that this image represents a white man dressed up with black paint on his face, meant to mimic the black man, does that change your thoughts about the image at all?

A little background information:
The minstrel show was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface. Minstrel shows lampooned black people in mostly disparaging ways: as ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and musical. The minstrel show began with brief burlesques and comic acts in the early 1830s and emerged as a full-fledged form in the next decade.

The typical minstrel performance followed a three-act structure. The troupe first danced onto stage then exchanged wisecracks and sang songs. The second part featured a variety of entertainments, including the pun-filled stump speech. The final act consisted of a slapstick musical plantation skit or a send-up of a popular play. Minstrel songs and sketches featured several stock characters, most popularly the slave, mammy, old darky, and the mulatto wench.

Read THE MINSTREL SHOW IN AMERICA for more information.

TASK 2: Watch 2 examples of an old Minstrel skit.
As you watch it, think about the following items to discuss with your group:
1. Is this type of entertainment appropriate or not?
2. What is the message behind this type of entertainment?
3. Should it have been allowed?
4. What was its purpose?
5. How did it make you feel as you watched it?
6. And finally..... would you have felt differently if you were an African American watching this?






TASK 3: Look at the following images associated with "Minstrel entertainment".

In your group divide these images into two categories:
1. Appropriate and Tasteful Advertisement OR 2. Blatant Bigotry
and be prepared to justify your choices.

Irony OMAM

Irony is defined as a difference or contrast between appearance and reality - that is a discrepancy between what appears to be true and what really is true. What irony can you find in Of Mice and Men?

3 Types of Irony-
1. Verbal irony occurs when people say the opposite of what they mean (and in its most bitter form becomes sarcasm.)
2. Situational irony is when the situation is different from what common sense indicates it is, will be, or ought to be.
3. Dramatic irony occurs when a character states something that they believe to be true but that the reader knows is not true.

The Trial of George - OMAM

Culminating Assignment- a Persuasive Argument Of Mice and Men

Now that you have completed the novella, you should have a clear understanding about the events leading up to the death of Lennie. If Lennie had gone to trial for what he did, perhaps he would have been found innocent, on the grounds of a lack of mental competence Do you believe that George made the right decision? Was this a mercy killing? Was George justified? Or is George a murderer?

In this assignment we are putting George on trial for murdering Lennie. You are to take the position of either the prosecuting attorney or the attorney for George´s defense. Watch this example of an attorney's closing arguments to give you some ideas of how to convince the jury that YOUR side represents the truth.....

Your first step is to decide what side you will represent. That will determine what "team" you are assigned to. These teams will debate the issue of George's innocence/guilt.

Persuasive arguments utilize logic and reason to show that one idea is more legitimate than another idea. It attempts to persuade a reader to adopt a certain point of view or to take a particular action. The argument must always use sound reasoning and solid evidence by stating facts, giving logical reasons, using examples, and quoting experts (as appropriate).

Your task is to come to class on Thursday ready to build a case for your side. You must bring 3 (written) supports for your position. At that time you will be assigned to a team and then you will work as a group to construct your case (as well as your rebuttles to the other side's arguments).

Research Project- OMAM

Mercy Killing or Murder? Ch 5-6

Chapter 5-6 Of Mice and Men

Was the death of Lennie a mercy killing or cold-blooded murder? Why?
What kind of man is George? Did your opinion of him change when you read Chapter 6?