The novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck has been read in ELA classes as part of the 9th-grade curriculum for as long as any English teacher can remember. This novel is still in the curriculum today and most likely will be read in the future too.
Lucia Musilli has been an ELA teacher at MHS for the past eight years and she enjoys reading the novel with her classes. Musilli likes how the novel is a “primary source from the 1930s, written in the time period in which it takes place.” The novel Of Mice and Men was originally published in 1937.
“John Steinbeck is a master of characterization and creating so many different characters who are each unique in their own way, which allows us to understand how a great author creates a character but also allows us to understand that time period in the United States, particularly about a group of people that might not have been literate,” said Musilli.
“It really deals with friendship and consequences. It is from a different era; it is from the 1930s, so it does reflect some of the ideas and things that were prevalent at that time, which are not the ideas and beliefs that we necessarily agree with now, but when we are studying history, it is really important to know. When you are reading a novel in a historical context, it is important to know where we come from, and we cannot necessarily discard books just because they don’t agree with our contemporary values. Part of reading is understanding the values of people over a long period of time and how they have evolved,” Jennifer Clapp, an ELA teacher said.
This novel teaches students what early life was like in the 1900s. “It is not particularly sensitive or insightful around the experiences of people of color. There is only one character who is not white in the book and who is not treated with some degree of respect, but it also demonstrates the historical way in which people were treated, so that it helps to understand what our historical grounding is,” Clapp said.
The past is there so that we do not repeat it and follow the same mistakes. “I think it is very important to acknowledge those things and talk about them and discuss them, not treat them like we are supposed to accept them. We should not just be like, oh, this is how we talk about women, that is not what we are looking for when we are reading. It is a book about friendship and the obligations of friendship and it is about despair and poverty and the inability to find a place in the world, the failure of the American dream, all of which are themes that are still valuable and relevant today, even though some of the contexts of is pretty outdated,” Clapp explained.
Brian Wong, an ELA teacher, finds the book to be suitable for 9th-grade students, “I mean, the things that freshman-age students read and watch outside of school are definitely more intense and severe than the subject matter in Of Mice and Men.”
Wong likes how the novel is engaging, the drama happening around the two main characters is exciting, “Eventually you have to find languages out of date or some situations that might not fully connect, but I think there is enough in the novel that is worth reading in terms of diversity and lived experiences,” Wong said.
Freshman Ryan Chueng said the book was “short and meaningful, besides the first chapter, which was boring,” and found this book suitable for 9th graders “besides them saying the n-word which can be a sensitive topic.”
Mia Lithe claimed reading this novel helps their communication skills. Despite the profanity and the somewhat uninteresting start off, she felt more confident talking with strangers after reading this novel, “but overall it was good,” said Lithe.
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