1. Teacher-of-English.com
Of Mice and Men
GCSE Literature

2. English GCSE Framework
This scheme of work has been designed to fit into the new English curriculum framework. This page shows explicitly how the scheme fits into the new framework.
Overview: To develop knowledge and understanding of a post 1914 prose text and to develop Reading skills. To develop pupils’ reading skills in preparation for the GCSE Literature examination.
Cross Curricular Themes Covered:
Identity and cultural diversity
Technology & The Media
7. Creativity & Critical Thinking
Cross Curricular Links:
PSHE – Themes of the play -racism, poverty, marginalisation, gender roles, social isolation
SOCIOLOGY – role of women in society, racism,
MEDIA – Analysis of film (Fight scene for Media cwk)
HISTROY – Social & Historical context – Great Depression, 1920s, Wall Street Crash, 1930s, New Deal, Dustbowl
Key Concepts Covered:
1.1 Competence
Reading skills
1.2 Creativity
Original Writing
Speaking & Listening tasks
1.3 Cultural Understanding
Themes, morals, messages
1.4 Critical Understanding
Unit focus is on analytical skills
Progression Sub strands Covered:
2.1 Speaking & Listening
(1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1,4.2)
Specific Assessed Outcomes
GCSE Coursework past paper Question
2.2 Reading
(5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3)
Potential Additional Outcomes
Sp & L Cwk (EN1), Original Writing (EN3), Media (EN3), exemplar materials
2.3 Writing
(7.2, 8.1, 8.4, 8.5, 9.1, 9.2)
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge & understanding of devices used in modern prose text
This slide can be printed to act as a coversheet for the scheme of work.

3. Reading Assessment Foci
This page shows explicitly how each lesson covers the different Reading Assessment foci.
Reading Focus of Lessons Covered
AF2 – understand, describe, select or retrieve information, events or ideas from texts and use quotation and reference to text
AF3 – deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts
AF4 – identify and comment on the structure and organisation of texts, including grammatical and presentational features at text level
AF5 – explain and comment on writers' use of language, including grammatical and literary features at word and sentence level
AF6 – identify and comment on writers' purposes and viewpoints, and the overall effect of the text on the reader
AF7 – relate texts to their social, cultural and historical traditions
This slide can be printed to act as a coversheet for the scheme of work.

4. Of Mice and Men Introduction Lesson 1: Social & Historical Context
Teacher-of-English.com
Of Mice and Men Introduction
Lesson 1: Social & Historical Context

5. Of Mice and Men Objectives:
To learn about the author of the text.
To find out about the social and historical context of the book.

6. John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men is influenced by John Steinbeck’s own experiences of working on the ranches in the Salinas Valley, California. Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902 into a wealthy family but his interest was in the lives of the labourers who worked on the farms around California. Steinbeck wrote a number of novels about poor people who worked on the land and dreamed of a better life (Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath) and he himself worked on a number of ranches around Salinas.
Of Mice and Men was Steinbeck’s first big success as a writer. Not only did the book sell very well it was turned into a Broadway play and a movie, providing Steinbeck with financial security.
However, Of Mice and Men almost didn’t make it to the publishers. After writing the first half of the story his dog, Toby, got its paws on the manuscript and shredded it! Fortunately Steinbeck was able to rewrite the first half again from memory.

7. The Great Depression
When Of Mice and Men was published in 1937 America was in the grip of a huge economic depression. On October , the Wall Street Crash led America into a depression which crippled the country from When banks went bust people lost their life savings and at one point one third of America's population were unemployed. Back in the 1930s there was no welfare state to help the unemployed so food became scarce and millions of jobless men and women lost their homes and were forced to live in shanty settlements known as 'Hoovervilles.’ Their homes were constructed from corrugated iron and anything else the people could get their hands on.
To make matters worse a series of droughts in states like Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas led to the failure of harvests and barren land. Farmers were forced to leave their land as they couldn't repay their mortgages and had to sell what they had to pay off their debts.
Many economic migrants went west to California, believing there would be land and jobs, but many were refused entry to the ‘Golden State’ and turned back. The refugees had nowhere to go back to, so they set up home in the California valleys - living in shacks of cardboard and old metal - and looked for work as casual ranch hands. Against this background, men like George and Lennie were lucky to have work. The farm hands were fortunate for at least a bunk-house to live in and to have food provided, even though the pay was low.

8. Wall Street Crash, 1929
A solemn crowd gathers outside the Stock Exchange after the Wall Street Crash of 1929

9. Panic on the streets of New York
Crowd at New York's American Union Bank during a bank run early in the Great Depression

10. The Great Depression
People lose everything – jobs, homes, savings – 1/3 of American population is unemployed

11. Destitute
Destitute families in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. In the 1930s, the American Government employed several photographers to document the effects of the Great Depression on the population of America.

12. Over Farming and Mechanisation
“Tractored out"; Power farming displaces tenants from the land in the western dry cotton area.

13. The Dustbowl
Buried machinery in Dallas during the 1936 Dust Bowl, an agricultural, ecological, and economic disaster.

14. The Hooverville
Hooverville

15. Films of the Great Depression
Click on the links below to watch a range of films about the economic depression of the 1930s
(Steinbeck & the Depression)
(The Wall St Crash)
(Hoovervilles)
(The Dust Bowl)
(Scenes from the Great Depression)
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)

16. Death of the American Dream
The American Dream is the idea that everyone in the United States has the chance to achieve success and prosperity. It is a social ideal set out in the American Declaration of Independence, 4th July, It states:
“all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”
Click here to watch a clip from The New York Times discussing what the ‘Dream’ means to American citizens.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the dream had all but died. Poverty, starvation and massive unemployment meant that the dream was unattainable and things were even worse for blacks as America was still a racist and segregated society.
Across the world the economic depression led to political instability with the rise of fascism in Italy, the Spanish Civil War and the emergence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.

17. Great Depression Mind Map
The Wall Street Crash
Dustbowl
The Great
Depression
poverty
Create a mind map using what you have learned about The Great Depression.

18. Check Your Understanding
Can you complete the following sentences?
Of Mice and Men is set in…
Steinbeck wrote about…
On October 29th 1929…
The Great Depression brought hardships such as…
The Dust Bowl was…
The American Dream is…