Author as Mentor Blog Lesson OneFocus Trait: Sentence Fluency
Support Trait: Idea Development
Grade Level: 9-12
Mentor Text: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Ohio Department of Education Academic Content Standards for Language Arts:
· 11-12 Program pg. 174: Writing: Writing Processes, A. Formulate writing ideas and identify a topic appropriate to the purpose and audience.
· 11-12 Program pg. 174: Writing: Writing Processes, B. Select and use an appropriate organizational structure to refine and develop ideas for writing.
· 11-12 Program pg. 174: Writing: Writing Processes, C. Use a variety of strategies to revise content, organization and style, and to improve word choice, sentence variety, clarity and consistency of writing.
· 11-12 Program pg. 174: Writing: Writing Processes, D. Apply editing strategies to eliminate slang and improve conventions.
· 11-12 Program pg. 174: Writing: Writing Applications, B, Write responses to literature that provide an interpretation, recognize ambiguities, nuances and complexities and that understand the author’s use of stylistic devices and effects created.
· 11-12 Program pg. 174: Writing: Writing Conventions, A. Use correct spelling conventions.
· 11-12 Program pg. 174: Writing: Writing Conventions, B. Use correct punctuation and capitalization.
· 11-12 Program pg. 174: Writing: Writing Conventions, C. Demonstrate understanding of the grammatical conventions of the English language.
Book Summary:
· Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California. Required reading in many US high schools, Of Mice and Men has been a frequent target of censors for vulgarity and what some consider offensive language; consequently, it appears on the American Library Association's list of the Most Challenged Books of 21st Century.
Author Bio:
John Steinbeck was the third of four children and the only son born to John Ernst and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. His father was County Treasurer and his mother, a former schoolteacher. John graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and attended classes at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 without a degree. He was variously employed as a sales clerk, farm laborer, ranch hand and factory worker. In 1925, he traveled by freight from Los Angeles to New York, where he was a construction worker. From 1926-1928, he was a caretaker in Lake Tahoe, CA. His first novel, "Cup of Gold," was published in 1929. During the 1930s, he produced most of his famous novels ("To a God Unknown," "Tortilla Flat," "In Dubious Battle," "Of Mice and Men," and his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Grapes of Wrath"). In 1941, he moved with the singer who would become his second wife to New York City. They had two sons, Thom (b. 1944) and John IV (b. 1946). In 1948, his close friend Ed Ricketts died, he went through a divorce, he took a a tour of Russia, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His wrote the screenplay for Viva Zapata! (1952), and 17 of his works have been made into movies. He received three Academy Award nominations. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. US President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the United States Medal of Freedom in 1964, and he was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp on what would have been his 75th birthday. His ashes lie in Garden of Memories Cemetery in Salinas.
Painting Places with Words
(borrowing Steinbeck’s sentence fluency to describe a new setting)
Teacher Instructions:
Step one (sharing the published model):
· Like "Show, don't tell," the expression "Paint a picture in your reader's mind" has become almost cliché in the writing classroom. If you've ever caught yourself saying those words to your students, ask yourself, "Have I really shown them what that means in an actual piece of writing?" If not, use the first few paragraph of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to show them the meaning of "Paint a picture in your reader's mind."
· In those very first two paragraphs of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, a picture is painted through words:
o A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees--willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter's flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool. On the sandy bank under the trees the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them. Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of 'coons, and with the spread pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the split-wedge tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark.
o There is a path through the willows and among the sycamores, a path beaten hard by boys coming down from the ranches to swim in the deep pool, and beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway in the evening to jungle-up near water. In front of the low horizontal limb of a giant sycamore there is an ash pile made by many fires; the limb is worn smooth by men who have sat on it.
· And this is just a start of what lies ahead in this marvelous novel. The words that Steinbeck chooses: the adjectives, excellent and thoughtful; the nouns, precise; the color words; the texture words; the fact that we not only see, but hear this setting make these paragraphs stand out as an example of classic writing.
· Talk about the details in these paragraphs with your students. Have students analyze the details using this organizer. Call on students to share and make a classroom chart that classifies into columns the most memorable images, the texture words, and the color words. Draw a line underneath Steinbeck's final word in these columns, and then add original ideas for images, texture, and color words through a class brainstorm.
· Have students, in small groups, write an impersonation of the entire first paragraph (or at least the first few sentences of it). Their group impersonation needs to borrow the sentence structure and some of the verbs, but change the images and adjectives by describing a completely different place. Here is a teacher model of the first few sentences being impersonated:
o A few blocks away from my house, a lonely highway drops too close to one of my neighbor's fences and runs black and yellow, black and yellow. The asphalt is warm to the touch, for it has baked and twinkled under the summer sun before creeping so close to my neighbor's yard. On one side of the highway the various litter piles thrown from cars march towards to the strong and lonely fence, but on the opposite side of the road the bushes are lined with blossoms... (etc)
· Have each group share its impersonation while other groups follow along with the original Steinbeck text. After each group shares, require other groups to share what they thought the best original image was in the other group's impersonation. Write those images down where all your students can see them. Also...keep a list of all the settings the groups have used in their impersonation paragraphs.
· Inform your writers that each individual will now--without using Steinbeck as a guide--describe one of the places described by another group with its impersonation paragraph. They will not be allowed to look at either Steinbeck or the group's impersonation paragraph as they write. Their task is NOT to remember the exact sentence structures used; instead, their task is to remember some of the most powerful images and to put those images in a paragraph that a) paints a picture of a place with words while it b) maintains flowing and original sentence structures.
Step two (introducing student models of writing):
· Before students start writing individual setting descriptions, you might have them look over any or all of the students models. Have students talk about how the sentence fluency in these samples is similar to Steinbeck's, but how it's different too. The impersonation paragraph was inspirational to these student writers, but it did not turn them into plagiarizers. Impersonation is very different than plagiarism. Talk about that with your writers.
Step three (thinking and pre-writing):
· After the groups have shared, put the Steinbeck passage and the group impersonation paragraphs away. Have students compose their paragraphs on the drafting sheet below, in order to keep them thinking about sentence fluency as they write.
Step four (revising with specific trait language):
· To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach WritingFix's Revision and Response Post-Its to your students' drafts. Make sure the students rank their use of the trait-specific skills on the Post-Its, which means they'll only have one "1" and one "5." Have them commit to ideas for revision based on their Post-It rankings.
Step five (editing for conventions):
· After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor.
· With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post-it.
Student Writer Instructions:
· First, you will work with friends to write an "impersonation paragraph." This paragraph needs to borrow the verbs and sentence structures found in Mr. Steinbeck's opening two paragraphs of Of Mice and Men.
· Start with Mr. Steinbeck's first sentence, and apply its structure to a completely different setting. The button below might give you some ideas for settings you can write about. From that point on, you can pick and choose from ANY of Steinbeck's sentences, and you don't have to go in order. Try to use strong adjectives, texture and color words, and powerful images in your impersonation paragraphs.
· You will read your group paragraphs aloud. The other groups will search Mr. Steinbeck's first two paragraphs and guess which of his sentences your sentences impersonate.
· Your teacher will keep a list of all the settings the other groups describe with their impersonation paragraphs.
· Next...you will put Mr. Steinbeck's words away. You will put your group's paragraph away. Then, you will choose any of the settings from your teacher's list. Alone, you will write a one- or two-paragraph description of the place you have chosen. Although you can't directly impersonate Steinbeck this time, you may borrow sentence fluency ideas and word choice ideas that you should have become more aware of when writing your impersonation paragraph.
· Share your individual paragraphs with a friend or with your original group. Have your "audience" find places where Mr. Steinbeck influenced your writing.
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