Your assignment for Of Mice and Men and your final exam in this class is as follows:

1937 Salinas Newspaper

You will divide in to teams of three to four.  One of you is the editor.  One of you is the federal and state reporter.  One of you is the local reporter.  One of you is the Arts and Entertainment reporter.

 

 The year is 1937 and you are located in Salinas, CA.  John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men has been published to great success.  The U.S. is beginning to pull out of the Great Depression, but many things are still problematic in the country.  The migrant farmworker conditions in and around Salinas still divides the community.  Communism and socialism are feared, even though people are very happy with many of FDR’s very socialist programs that are helping put people back to work and provide financial support to those who could not find work. 

 

Jobs:

Editor:  responsible for designing the masthead for your newspaper.  Give it a title, and a design.  A motto is often found on the masthead.  Include the date – sometime in 1937, after the publication of the novel.  The editor is also responsible for writing the editorial:  you must choose a topic appropriate to the time and the novel. 

 

National and State reporter: you are responsible for designing the layout of all the articles.  The article you write should reflect what is going on in the country and the rest of California at the time – your focus should be the U.S. recuperating from the Depression and staying out of what now appears to be a coming war in Europe.

 

Local Reporter:  your focus is on what is happening in the local scene.  You are responsible for writing an article about an event in Soledad: the death of a young wife and the shooting of the man who killed her – a mentally retarded man of great strength.  A second article might include local openings or something of interest about Salinas, or even an article about local writer, John Steinbeck.

 

Arts and Entertainment Reporter:  You are responsible for reviewing the play of Of Mice and Men.  Provide info on what is happening in and around Salinas at that time.  Pick out pictures from online to add to each of the articles being written for your newspaper.

 

You will have time in the library to use the Internet sites I have picked out for you.  Your newspapers are due on the day of our final exam. On that day you will present your newspapers orally to the class.  My website with all the appropriate links to Steinbeck and Great Depression sites will be ready for your use this Sunday, Dec.. 5, 2004.  You may start working on this at any time.