Description
After discussing the famous and fluent opening that launches Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, small groups of writers impersonate the description by applying Steinbeck's paragraph's verbs and sentence structures to a different setting. The impersonations are shared out loud, and the teacher writes the names of the new settings on the board. As individual writers, students then choose one of the settings from the list, and (without directly impersonating Steinbeck this time) each writes a one-paragraph setting description that attempts to "paint with words" a setting, while using interesting sentences that flow.
Website(s)
The Northern Nevada Writing Project
The National Writing Project
John Steinbeck
Six-Trait Overview
The focus trait for this writing assignment is sentence fluency; by impersonating Steinbeck's sentences, students discover what fluency with words looks and sounds like. The support trait for this writing assignment is idea development; strong adjectives, color words, texture words, and memorable images are analyzed and then encouraged as students create a powerful and memorable setting description.
Author
Northern Nevada Writing Project Consultant Madelyn Read
Duration
One 45-minute class period
Materials
- Copies of the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- Copies of Sentence Fluency Rough Draft handout (one per student)
- Overhead of Sentence Fluency Overhead document
- Copies of Sentence Fluency Student Models (one per student)
Sentence Fluency Student Models.pdfSentence Fluency Rough draft.pdfSentence Fluency Overhead.pdf
Step-by-Step Procedure
Anticipatory Set: Ask students to record on scrap paper what the expression: "Paint a picture in your reader's mind" means to them. Ask students to write one sentence that does paint a picture. Share and discuss as a class.
Read the first few paragraphs 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:
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.
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. Analyze the details. 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. (See the attached teacher model titled sentence fluency overhead- you may want to make an overhead of it and share with the class before they begin their work in groups.)
- 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.
- Distribute the Sentence Fluency Rough Draft worksheet and allow time for students to begin writing. Ask for student volunteers to share their pieces as time permits.
Closure: Have students rate their first drafts by completing the self-evaluation at the bottom of the Rough Draft worksheet.
Extension of Lesson
To promote response and revision to rough draft writing, attach Revision & 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. For more ideas on WritingFix's Revision & Response Post-Its, click here.
After students apply their revision ideas to their drafts and re-write neatly, require them to find an editor. If you've established a "Community of Editors" among your students, have each student exchange his/her paper with multiple peers. With yellow high-lighters in hand, each peer reads for and highlights suspected errors for just one item from the Editing Post Its.
When they are finished revising and have second drafts, invite your students to come back to this piece once more during an upcoming writer's workshop block. Their stories might become a longer story, a more detailed piece, or the beginning of a series of pieces about the story they started here. Students will probably enjoy creating an illustration for this story as they get ready to publish it for their portfolios.
Content Provider
The Northern Nevada Writing Project: WritingFix
