Category Archives: EN10 2018

Conflict & PEACE!

There are 5 main elements to a good story. Just because you have been such a wonderful class this semester, I’m going to share one of my very favourite lessons. If you’re lucky, you may even remember this one for years to come (like the grade 11 students sitting in my room at lunch who reminded me to show you this)

Watch this! (actually, watch it a few times to make sure that it has time to permanently embed into your brain!)

Today we’ll focus on one of those elements: CONFLICT

ConflictTypes

You will have to write about a conflict in your chosen novel. To do it, however, I want you to try to use PEACE!

PEACEHandout

PEACEExample

Put those together and you’ve got yourself a recipe for success on your next assignment!

ChoiceNovelResponse3_ConflictPEACE

Of Mice and Men Chapter 6

Answer all of the following questions on a separate page or document IN COMPLETE SENTENCES, using proper spelling, grammar, and sentence construction.

1. How does George know where to find Lennie?

2. What does George talk about in his last conversation with Lennie? Why?

3. What is your opinion of George’s actions/decision?

4. At the end of the story, Slim leads George to the highway, while Curley and Carlson are left standing there, gazing at them. What do Curley and Carlson believe happened when George found Lennie in the brush? What do they not know or understand?

Style

1) Most of the novel is realistic, but in Chapter 6, Steinbeck introduces two unrealistic, dreamlike elements. What are they? Describe each of them in your own words. How do each of these elements relate to Lennie’s emotional state at the time? (/3)

2) Describe an incident from earlier in the novel that can be compared to the killing of Lennie. How are these two incidents similar? How are they different? The earlier incident seems put there to connect directly to the ending. What message and what feelings do you think he was intending to create within readers? Explain in detail. (/3)

Of Mice and Men Chapter 5

Answer all of the following questions on a separate page or document IN COMPLETE SENTENCES, using proper spelling, grammar, and sentence construction.

  1. Why do you think Curley’s wife comes to talk to Lennie? Why him?
  2. What is Curley’s wife’s dream? Why did she marry Curley?
  3. As George and Candy stand over the body, what do they realize about their dream? What type of life does George envision for himself now?
  4. How does Slim show his wisdom and understanding of Lennie after he examined the body?

Style

  1. Find details in the novel that foreshadow the death of Curley’s wife and provide quotes as well as page numbers. Why is George sure that Lennie killed Curley’s wife? (/3)
  2. Re-read the conversation between Lennie and Curley’s wife on p.86-91. What do you think her motives (reasons) were when she roamed the farm flirting with the other men? In what sense is Curley’s wife no longer like a stereotype, or a one-dimensional character? How is Curley’s wife like George and Lennie? (/3)

Of Mice and Men Chapter 4

Answer all of the following questions on a separate page or document IN COMPLETE SENTENCES, using proper spelling, grammar, and sentence construction.

1. In Crooks’ opinion, why does George travel with Lennie?

2. Why do you think Crooks teases Lennie about George not coming back? When/why does Crooks stop teasing Lennie?

3. In what ways are Lennie and Crooks alike?

4. Why does Crooks think that George, Lennie, and Candy will never get their own ranch?

5. What does Curley’s wife think of Curley’s “accident?”

6. Why do you think Crooks changes his mind about joining the others on their ranch?

Style

  1. The chapters near the end of the book are considerably shorter than the first couple of chapters. Why do you think that is? What’s changed about the writing since the beginning?
  2. The mood or tone of the book has changed since the beginning. How do you think the characters felt at the beginning vs. how they might be feeling now? Have your feelings/emotions changed later in the book? Describe how they have (or how someone else’s might.)

Of Mice and Men Chapter 3

Answer all of the following questions on a separate page in complete sentences.

Chapter 3

  1. How did George treat Lennie when they were younger? What happened that changed George’s attitude?
  2. George, Lennie and Candy all share the dream of owning their own farm. For each one, however, the dream is a little different. Explain why having their own farm (or ranch) is attractive to each character: (see p.56-61) (/3) a) Lennie b) Candy c) George
  3. How do the men feel about Crooks? Does Slim also feel this way? How do you know this? Explain.
  4. Why do you think that Curley chose to pick a fight with Lennie? Explain what might have been going through his mind and what angered him in the first place.
  5. Why does Slim invent a story to explain what has happened to Curley? Why does Curley accept this explanation? Explain the motivations for each of them.

Personal Connection

Do you think that Candy did the right thing when he agreed to have his dog ‘put out of its misery’? Explain what he was thinking and whether it was the right thing to do and the right way to do it. (/3)

Big Word of the Day: Cowering (p.64) Use it in your answer for the Personal Connection question.

Idioms!

First, let’s understand a word that A LOT of people get wrong:

Often in English, we say things where our INTENDED meaning is different than the LITERAL meaning.

Idioms are expressions that have an understood meaning that is VERY different than their literal meaning.

Of Mice and Men is full of them! Here’s a look at just a few of them from chapter 1: Of Mice and Men Idioms1

Well, there are many more idioms throughout the book!

2 goals for today:

  1. Find as many idioms as we can. EVERYONE needs to be responsible for finding AT LEAST 1 and adding it to the list.
  2. Draw, act out, or just explain what AT LEAST 1 IDIOM would LITERALLY look like vs. what they are INTENDED to mean.

You can fill in the idioms for your assigned section by clicking on this link (or using Mr. Robson’s computer)

Of Mice and Men Chapter 2

(/25)

Of Mice and Men Chapter 2

Answer all of the following questions on a separate page or document IN COMPLETE SENTENCES, using proper spelling, grammar, and sentence construction.

1) What does the boss suspect when he first meets George and Lennie? (/1) Why do you think he has these suspicions? (/1)

2) Who is Curley? (/1) How does he react to his first meeting with Lennie? (/1) How do you explain his reaction? (/1)

3) George identifies two omens of trouble in chapter 2. Who are they? (/1) What does George tell Lennie to do to avoid trouble? (/1) Why do they simply not leave the ranch? (/1)

4) Slim is also introduced in this chapter. What is your first impression of Slim? Give two or three specific details that help to create this impression. (/2)

5) Why do you think the other characters are surprised when they learn that George and Lennie are travelling together? (/2)

6) What is Carlson’s chief complaint about Candy’s dog? What does he think Candy should do? (/1)

7) Based on your reading of the story so far, do you think Lennie will be able to keep himself out of trouble? Explain your response. (/2)

Vocabulary

Give the meanings of the following words without using a dictionary. Try to figure out their meanings by finding them in the book and checking how they are used. Rewrite the sentence using a different word/phrase in place of the vocabulary term AND come up with your own sentence using each of the words below. Both parts must make sense.

a) scowled (p. 21) (/2)
b) pugnacious (p. 25) (/2)
c) ominously (p. 27) (/2)
d) contorted (p. 30) (/2)
e) gravity (p. 33) (/2)

Of Mice and Men Chapter 1

Answer all of the following questions on a separate page in complete sentences.

Chapter 1

  1. Why do you think George reacts so strongly (angrily) to Lennie at times? For example, when Lennie tells him many times that he likes ketchup on his beans?
  2. According to George, how are he and Lennie different from other ranch workers?
  3. Explain George’s internal conflict in his feelings towards Lennie? What might cause him to think one way and act another?
  4. Why do you think that the author, John Steinbeck, use strange spellings, such as “awright,” in his characters’ dialogue in the story?

Personal Connections

This novel isn’t so much about the action, more about the characters. An important understanding of the characters is key to your understanding and enjoyment of the novel.

Tell me which character best represents you or someone you know. You (or the person you know) isn’t going to be exactly like either of the characters in the book, but you will surely see parts of yourself (or someone else you know) in these characters. How are you (or how is someone you know) LIKE or DISLIKE one (or both) of the characters in the book? Explain in clear, complete sentences. (/3)

Opinions + Facts = Academic Success!

OK, it’s time to admit that I’ve secretly been toying with you. All of this talk about opinions and using facts to back them up has just been a bit of a sly leadup to a very important topic, but one that students, for some reason, tend to be afraid of: writing essays.

If that word scares you, it’s just because nobody has taught you the secret to how easy writing essays can be. Once you know the secret formula to writing a strong essay, AND YOU FOLLOW IT, you’ll see that writing them is actually quite easy, and you’ll have no problem getting great marks.

The hardest part is coming up with the right topic, but lucky for you, you may have already done this without knowing it. We’re going to write an argumentative essay, which is an extension of the written piece that I had you do previously. Feel free to use that topic (and a lot of what you’ve already written) for your essay!

Once you know what you’re going to write, you need to come up with a THESIS SENTENCE. This is ONE sentence that acts as a summary of your entire argument.

I started with a simple statement: Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone.

It’s an opinion statement that is easy for someone to argue with. So from there, I needed to come up with some facts that would help back my point up. Opinions are weak because they can be argued with and someone who disagrees can still be right, but facts, well, you can’t really argue with facts. Combine some strong facts with a strong opinion and you’ve got a recipe for success.

WHY is pizza the perfect meal choice? Well, I had 4 thoughts originally:

  • Versatile
  • Popular
  • Cheap
  • 4 food groups – full meal

Your essay needs to have THREE strong facts that can be explained in detail to help prove your point, so I took the 3 that I thought were the strongest and easiest to explain, and came up with a sentence for each, combining my original statement with a fact that helps prove the point:

  1. Pizza is such a great meal choice because it is very versatile, since it can be made with such a wide variety of toppings.
  2. The popularity of pizza makes it a perfect meal choice.
  3. Pizza presents a rare opportunity to have one dish that contains all four food groups.

You’ll need to write AT LEAST 3 sentences explaining each point, so make sure that there are things that you can say about each.

Once you’ve got those figured out, and you’re sure that you can expand each point with AT LEAST 3 other sentences, you need to go back and revise your THESIS to include those points.

So my thesis became:

Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone, because it is very versatile, very popular, and it is a very balanced meal all by itself.

That THESIS sentence goes AT THE END of the first paragraph. Don’t worry yet about what goes before it.

From there, take each of those 3 TOPIC sentences and write AT LEAST 3 sentences explaining each point. End off each of those three BODY paragraphs by restating the first, TOPIC sentence! In total, each BODY paragraph needs to be AT LEAST 5 SENTENCES LONG. The structure of each paragraph is THE SAME.

Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone, because it is very versatile, very popular, and it is a very balanced meal all by itself. (THESIS)

The first reason why pizza is such a great meal choice is that it is very versatile, since it can be made with such a wide variety of toppings. (TOPIC SENTENCE) Everyone from meat lovers to vegans can find a combination that will suit their preferences. Varying the toppings, sauces, cheese, and even the dough can create seemingly endless combinations, so there’s always a way to make pizza new, interesting, and enjoyable for all. It’s easy to change those toppings and combinations so a pizza meal never needs to be repetitive or boring. These combinations and possibilities help make pizza a perfect meal choice for just about everyone. (TOPIC RESTATED)

The versatility of pizza is just one of the many reasons why pizza is so popular, and that popularity makes it a perfect meal choice. (TOPIC SENTENCE) As mentioned, anyone can find a combination of ingredients and toppings to suit their needs. Since pizza is such a widely appreciated meal, you can easily make it yourself using basic ingredients, and of course can find pizza restaurants just about everywhere. Because you can make it with basic ingredients and it’s fast and easy to make, pizza is very popular. This widespread popularity proves that pizza is a great meal choice. (TOPIC RESTATED)

Lastly, pizza presents a rare opportunity to have one dish that contains all four food groups, making it a perfect meal choice. (TOPIC SENTENCE) When you look at the grains in the dough, the cheese on top, vegetables in the sauce and as toppings, and meats and alternates making frequent appearances, you can see that it is quite easy to have a balanced meal representing all of the necessary food groups. Pizza is also one of those rare meals that does not require any kind of side dish, as it is filling, enjoyable, and healthy all on its own. Since pizza is baked, not fried, and it generally contains a lot of fresh ingredients, pizza tends to be rather healthy in nature. The balanced, healthy nature further proves that pizza is the perfect meal choice. (TOPIC RESTATED)

The final paragraph starts with the thesis sentence again, and serves to show that you’ve proven your point. My conclusion starts like this:

The versatility, popularity, and healthy, balanced nature of pizza all combine to make it one of the most perfect meal options available. (THESIS RESTATED)

EACH PARAGRAPH SHOULD CONTAIN AT LEAST 5 SENTENCES. You will be writing five paragraphs of AT LEAST five sentences each, so your essay will be AT LEAST 25 sentences long.  BUT, you’ll notice that the thesis sentence gets reused ONCE in the INTRODUCTION and CONCLUSION and gets revised as a TOPIC SENTENCE at the BEGINNING AND END of each BODY paragraph, so it essentially gets used EIGHT times!