Of Mice and Men - Chapter 2

A series of four lessons on chapter 2 of Of Mice and Men, looking at characters, hierarchy and building up to writing an essay - with an example.
The first of these lessons focuses on the setting, with pupils comparing the setting of the second chapter to the more tranquil and peaceful opening.
In the second lesson, pupils focus on the concept of hierarchy, and as they start to meet characters they start putting them into hierarchical order.
In the third lesson, we meet Curley’s wife and Slim, and consider how they are presented as characters that the reader is supposed to either like or dislike. There is opportunity to discuss the extent to which the reader’s opinion of Curley’s wife is tainted by the expectations we have of her following Candy’s description of her as a ‘tart’ previously.
In the fourth of these lessons, pupils plan and prepare to write an essay looking at the society of the ranch. They return to the previous ideas about ranch hierarchy and there is opportunity to see if their ideas about the hierarchy have changed now that they have read a little more: you could make this as interactive as you like, depending on the class.
I’ve provided a planning sheet with clear paragraph ideas, and an example essay that perfectly matches it: you could use it prior to writing the essay, or use it as a self-assessment tool following essay writing.
I’ve created these lessons for GCSE pupils, and they could be easily tweaked up or down to suit your group.