Of+Mice+and+Men+essay

// Of Mice and Men // Name ___________________

Essay assignment Period ________

Choose one of the following topics:
 * The title of Steinbeck’s book comes from a Robert Burns poem with the line, **“the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Do you think Steinbeck believes this is true**? Does Steinbeck want to show that all dreams and plans are hopeless? Or that our dreams keep us going when times are hard? What do you think?
 * Many of the characters in this novel seem to be lonely in spite of the fact that there are other people around them. Why? Is that part of the life they are living? What would make this easier?

Decide on a topic and decide what you think about that idea. This is your claim, or thesis. Write an essay to **explain your point of view.** To prove your point, **use textual evidence from Steinbeck’s book and from the Dorothea Lange photographs we looked at in class.**

**First**, decide on your thesis. **Next**, choose how to structure the essay (what will be in each paragraph). **Write an introductory paragraph** that starts broadly, so that anyone who found this essay on the floor in the hall would be led to your **thesis** and understand what you’re talking about. Then **write your body paragraphs**. Make sure to include a transition from one topic to the next. Use **two quotations with page numbers** for supportin each of the three body paragraphs. Use your notes to be sure you are correctly including and citing each example. **Explain each quotation** fully. Make sure each explanation ties the example to the topic sentence. **One or two of your pieces of evidence should be what you see in one of the photographs.** Finally, **begin your conclusion with a restatement of your thesis.** If you have things to say on this topic beyond the scope of the body of the essay, use them in your conclusion. Your conclusion may contain your opinion about the author’s theme, or a comment about how you think this applies to the reader’s life in the world now, but find a way to say this without the words I, me, my, etc.
 * Voila! ** You’ve written a wonderful essay! Congratulations! Staple the grading chart on top of the final essay with the outline underneath. I look forward to reading it!

Integrating Quotations
 * An essay must be your writing and your ideas. But using passages from the text can strengthen your argument. They can:
 * o prove you’re correct.
 * o to give an example of your idea.
 * o to show how you came to your conclusion.
 * When writing an essay, don’t use a quotation in the introduction.
 * In the body of the essay, after a topic sentence, use passages from the text to support your position.
 * Your citation (passage quotation) must start with **your** words. The words from the text must be part of your sentence.
 * o Ex.: George gets mad at Lennie, but he often regrets it, as when he sits looking “ashamedly at the flames”(11).
 * o Starts with a signal phrase (your words) leading in to words from the book.
 * o Words from the text are put in quotation marks.
 * o If the passage ends in a question mark or exclamation point, put that inside the quotation marks and a period after the page number.
 * § He said, “By golly, you’re right!”(427).
 * If you only want to use the beginning and ending words of a passage, put an ellipsis ( . . . ) where the missing words belong.