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

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....

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?