
Develop critical and analytical reading skills through literature, and learn to decode language and ideas to understand human beings, psychology, and the human condition.
Learn how denotation and connotation shape readers' emotions by using adjectives and imagery to make characters feel, smell, hear, and fear, not just see.
Explore how the book uses an offensive term for African-Americans in 1937, during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, and why that term is not acceptable today.
George and Lenny arrive at the bunkhouse, meet the boss, Candy, Curly and his wife, Slim and Carlson, revealing tensions on the ranch and Lenny's longing for a puppy.
George, Lenny, and Candy confront mortality, dream of independence, and the longing to tend rabbits on their own ranch, while the dog and Curley’s violence foreshadow danger.
Lennie's strength shatters a fragile dream in the barn as he kills a puppy and Curley's wife; George feels guilt as the best laid plans of mice and men collapse.
In part six, the green pool scene marks life going on after Lennie's deed. George faces mercy, the farm dream, and Lennie's fate as he shoots him.
This course is a page by page literary analysis and literary deconstruction of the classic Steinbeck novel “Of Mice and Men,” taught by a Middle and High School English teacher with over 15 years of classroom teaching experience. This is the information I teach my students in my English classes. It is an entire English class walking you through the analysis and deconstruction of the book, step by step, page by page, line by line, with the emphasis on making it understandable.
The introduction includes a contextual discussion of the historical time period of the novel to help you make sense of what is happening and why, as well as an understanding of the meaning of the title.
Each chapter includes a plot summary, an in-depth analysis of the characters and the story as a whole, as well as a write-up of critical quotes and an explanation as to why they are important. Focus is given to understanding how and why information is relevant and important, and how it relates to other parts of the story.
In addition, the course is taught with an emphasis on noting and understanding the key ideas, concepts and insights that a Middle or High School English teacher is looking for you to gain from reading and analyzing the text.