Last week, we began reading John Steinbeck's very famous, and very controversial, novel, Of Mice and Men.
This morning, as I was doing my lesson preparation for class tomorrow, I thought that at one point in the class it would be useful to discuss why we are reading this novel. Then I decided that a better forum for that discussion was here on our class blog, which is why you're now reading this.
So, why are we reading Of Mice and Men?
That's the question that I wrote in my notes for our class tomorrow, but of course, you might like to respond much more generally. Perhaps you don't think we should be reading this novel at all, that it's a complete waste of time. Even worse, perhaps you think that we should not read novels at all in an academic English class, but only essays or other more academic types of writing. Naturally, I hope that at least some of you do think my decision to read this novel in class was a good one; if so, why to you agree me?
And then there are questions you might like to address about how we should approach reading this novel. There are a lot of websites that offer analyses, summaries and the like on the novel, some very good, some awful (one such site that someone has used can't even write decent high school English): should we look at such websites? Why? Why not? If they are useful, why and how are they useful? What are the dangers or possible benefits of such websites? Which one did you like? Dislike?
These are a few questions and ideas to get get thinking. Now, it's your turn:
- add a comment below to share your response to anything on my topic in this post.
- if you want to make two or three different points, you might prefer to make them in two or three separate comments.
- it's a good idea to turn on the "Subscribe by email" option for comments. That way, you will be kept up to date when new comments that might interest you are posted.
_________________________
Added October 10.
Thank you to everyone for sharing your ideas. I'm glad that the responses have been positive, despite the general agreement that reading Steinbeck's novel has not been easy.
Since I asked the question, I would like to share some of my own reasons for setting this novel for you to read. All of the reasons below are related to the book's value for practising the skills needed in academic reading and writing.
- As most of you agreed in your comments, it's excellent reading practice, especially as many of the words are slang and not even in the dictionary if you looked. You have to work out from the context what is being said. And at 121 pages, it's not too long to read in a couple of weeks - less than ten pages a day on average.
- It is a very famous novel, and includes comments on many issues that are still both important and controversial in American society and culture. Most Americans, and many others, study this novel in high school, except those whose parents have it banned. It also provides an understanding of an important period in American history as well as a deeper awareness of aspects of American culture, such as dreams of independence, self determination, responsibility and commitment. This practises applying what you read more generally or to other situations, an important skill in academic reading.
- It is very well written. Steinbeck is a great writer, and as the quote from Nick Hornby on the cover suggests, many people think that it is "a perfect book."
- It makes a useful topic for us to practise academic writing on. The questions we have written about require research to support ideas, but all the research can be done in the novel. Similarly, all the support for your paragraphs and essays about it must come from within the novel, so you are practising using research from sources to support your ideas, but you don't have to look in many different places.
- Related to the last point, it gives good practice in paraphrasing, quoting and citing sources, and these are essential skills in every area of academic study and writing. It doesn't matter what you study, you will have to use and cite sources.
- Finally, at least for now, the issues that Steinbeck raises provide useful topics for critical thinking because they are issues that really do matter to people, which is why the novel has not only been famous, but also very controversial, ever since its publication in 1937.
AUA also has a copy of the latest film adaptation, which I think is pretty good: it follows the novel closely, and accurately portrays the period. If you like, we could spend an hour or two watching the film. I enjoyed it, and it might help you to see what Steinbeck describes. I don't think it would be a waste of time, but please feel welcome to add another comment, or two, to let me know what you think about this, or to respond to anything else I've written here.
Actually, if I am not commanded to read this story, I will not even read it over one chapter because the author uses many slangs and difficult words ,so it is too hard for me to get the idea. Moreover, the author uses difficult rhetoric because the author uses only dialogues and environment explanation to tell the story. This means that I have to guess the meaning from the charater's conversation such as what do they think, so I have to look for the other website because I have to check my idea correct or not. In my opinion, these websites can use only to check that you get the main idea from charactor's speech or not because they do not focus on any of the environment context( I used the same website as you stated ). This means that the story's detail does not be given to the reader completely. In conclusion, I think I should read this novel because it teach me how to deal with this kind of difficult rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Euy that the author used a lot of slang and difficult words to describe this story. It makes me feel hard to understand and catch up with his ideas in this story. Moreover, the teacher also told us that we should not open the dictionary when we met difficult words that we don’t know their meanings, but we should guess their meanings from the context. This way made me feel more difficult to understand the story. Anyway, now I think the teacher is right because if I open every word that I don't know, I can't even finish reading this book on time. This is because this story's full of words that I don't know. Furthermore, when I try opening the dictionary for some words, my dictionary doesn’t have the meanings of them. Therefore, I realize that I should read it by using the method that the teacher recommended.
ReplyDeleteFor the website that provides the summary of this story, I also agree with Euy. I used it check my understanding and get the main point of each chapter in this story because after I finished reading the first two chapter, I’m not sure that I understand right or wrong. Therefore, I think these websites have benefits if you use them in the right way. They can help you more understand about the story. However, if you want to study English well, you should read these novels in order to learn more about the rhetoric.
Generally, reading is very useful. Teachers always tell students that we should keep reading everyday to improve your English especially reading and writing skill. I try to read The Bangkok Post newspapers and English magazines, but I can't do it everyday. When I find some words that I don't know the meaning, I usually stop reading. Thus, personally, I don't like reading a thick book like a novel and always bored. Nonetheless, after Peter assigned me to read Of Mice and Men novel and suggest the best way to read, I try to read without worrying about unknown words. Although, there are a lot of difficult vocabularies, I keep going to read. I amaze that I can imagine the story without using dictionary; though, I can't understand the whole story and have many questions in my brain. So, this is the reason for reading Of Mice and Men, I can find that reading a novel is not boring any more, but it's still difficult to understand.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with everybody. I think this novel is hard to understand. Normally, I read novel and I don't use dictionary because I think using dictionary takes time. It makes me read very slow and I can't get the feeling of characters. If I see a word repeatly and I can't guess this word, I will use my dictionary. In Of Mice and Men, I think it has a lot of slangs. I tried to imagine and I have to read many times to understand it. However, I learned some structures and slangs from this book.
ReplyDeleteI agree with them, Of mice and men is somewhat difficult to understand. However,there are many websites that provide information about this story. For me, I read both in the book and websites. I think, this will make me clearify my understanding.
ReplyDeleteThe novel, Of Mice and Men, has a lot of slang words and difficult to understand. However, I can guess the meaning of them when I read whole story (not open dictionary) and get more understanding from websites. The words from many websites are easy to read but no elaborated information that is important of tail. I can find rhetoric and follow imagine of writer’ story when I read it from book. That is the reason why we should read this novel from book.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first English novel that I try to read. Indeed, I try to read an English novel many times, but it always stops when I worry about unknown words. This assignment is useful not only for me but also for anyone who think that the novel reading is so difficult to understand. Before I read this novel, I wonder if I can understand this novel by not using dictionary. After reading, I have the same feeling with Pin. I am amazed that I can understand the story if it is not the whole story. It makes me more confident to read the second one and also enjoy reading.
ReplyDeleteFor the website that provides the summary of this story, I also agree with everybody. It can check the understanding and also enhance reader to read more details. I found that the novel give me a flavor of details in the story than the summary.
When I read this novel, There are a lot of vocabularies that make me unclear. I try to seek some resources to help me understand each chapter. They have not only summary but have meaning of slangs and words. After that I repeat to read again. This can promote to clearify.
ReplyDeleteThis novel is very useful to me. I can practise my reading skill.