Of Mice and Men
The world Of Mice and Men
Context in some pieces of literature make or break the book. Though Of Mice and Men seems easy to read, the basis for the world of broken workers in a the broken world of The Great Depression is alien to the students of today who text, watch TV and drive cars to their High School Class. There are still poor in America, extremely poor, yet the majority of kids today have so much more than what the majority had during the Great Depression. Your job is to present the daily life of the Depression from a common person’s point of view.
Goal #1 - Student will be able to identify and describe what a person does on a daily basis during the Great Depression.
Goal #2 - Student will be able to evaluate what would if they had to survive during that time.
Assignment and Steps
Research the Great Depression using the resources below to get an idea of what happened.
Pick a person from the Depression. Either someone your age, older, younger.
Imagine putting yourself in their shoes. What would be their Life like?
You can choose to present this as:
A PowerPoint Presentation (or Google Slide)
or
An Instagram posts (or Snapchat if you can hold onto the image long enough)
Give a daily schedule with pictures and commentary for about every half-hour of their day.
Some notes
Your pictures do not need to be black and white, but they need to be period-true. No cellphones, modern cars, fluorescent lights, etc. in the pictures. You can use pictures you find in the resources too. You can even use video you find
You may a typical day, or do an eventful day like during a dust storm, a bank robbery (Bonnie and Clyde?), bank ‘holidays’ (you’ll find out they were really not holiday)
Resources
Great overview of the Depression with a lot of good pictures. This is a large site, so give it a good look through. It's titled as Modern American Poetry - but it's far more than that.
The Great Depression -Illinois Ed.
Daily Life during The Great Depression - article.
Daily Life during the Great Depression
Dust Bowl article
Short Videos of the Dust Bowl (part of the "Black Blizzard Series"
Some articles for Bonnie and Clyde
NYTimes article on Bonnie and Clyde
Wikipedia over Bonnie and Clyde
Podcasts for the Great Depression. This is a list of Podcasts by the History Tellers over The Great Depression.
Podcasts The History Tellers of The Great Depression
Criteria
Ø At least 10 images with posts - either a PowerPoint slides (Google slide) or Instagram.
Ø Your presentation is not presented in class, but on the internet, so have your slides and commentary have to make sense.
Ø You can use video clips for a minute AT THE MOST!
Rubric
Category | To receive a 3 (Superior) | To receive a 2 (Strong) | To receive a 1 (OK) | To receive a 0 (Poor) |
10 Slides and Commentary? | 10 slides and Commentary | 10 slides but not all commentary or 8 slides and commentary | 8 slides but not all commentary or 6 slides with commentary | Less than listed for this category. |
Daily life? Does it cover the daily life of the average person or not or does it cover the big issues of The Great Depression? | The presentation shows great depth and observation of the daily life of the average person – even if the daily life was an eventful one | The presentation shows a good depth and observation of the daily life of the average person – even if the daily life was an eventful one. Or chooses to parrot the basic overall History of the Great Depression with little dealing with the average person and their daily life. | The presentation shows some depth and observation of the daily life of the average person – even if the daily life was an eventful one. Or chooses to cover the basic overall History of the Great Depression without any dealings with the average person and their daily life. It could be good, but not the assignment. | Both a poor observation and depth of the average person during the Great Depression. |
Images | 10 great images of the Depression. The depth of the images convey the stark reality of The Great Depression in contrast with today. | 8 great images of the Depression. The depth of the images convey the reality of The Great Depression in contrast with today. | 6 great images of the Depression. The images convey the reality of The Great Depression in contrast with today. | Less than described by the last category. |
Commentary | All 10 of the commentaries are excellent and cause the viewer to see the great contrast of today with that time. | 8 of the commentaries are excellent and cause the viewer to see the great contrast of today with that time. There could be some commentary that is not great, but good. | 6 of the commentaries are excellent and cause the viewer to see the great contrast of today with that time. There could be some commentary that is not great, but just OK. | Less than described by the last category. |