Of Mice and Men:

Character Collage

For this assignment you will be creating a character collage that demonstrates your knowledge of one of the major characters in John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men. Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Pick a major character from Of Mice and Men (Lennie, George, Slim, Curley, Curley’s Wife, Crooks, etc).
  1. Create your collage:

·  Your collage should be COVERED with images and pictures that you feel symbolize and represent your character. As a general rule of thumb, the more pictures, the better your grade. The fewer pictures, the lower your grade. Please try to limit the amount of words you use as part of your collage – I’d like you to try to stick to 100% pictures (100 points).

·  Quantity, however, is not everything. I want to see your creativity at work here! Generally, the students who earn the highest grades on this assignment are the ones whose collages DON’T APPEAR TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THEIR CHARACTER. All of their selections, however, demonstrate a deep understanding of the character. For example, you won’t earn very many points by slapping a picture of a black man onto your collage and telling me, “This represents Crooks because he’s the only black character in the story.” Duh. I would, however, be very impressed if you placed a picture of an island on your collage, and then told me that you selected an island to represent the isolation and loneliness Crooks faces because of his skin color. See the difference?!?

·  Make sure that EVERYTHING you place on your collage means SOMETHING. It’s all about the symbolism, folks!

·  Prepare a paper in which you explain the significance of the pictures you selected. In your paper, you should clearly explain the choices you made, and why you made them. How do the images you selected demonstrate your knowledge of your character? Your paper should tell me the things your collage shows (100 points).

·  Present your collage to the class, and fully explain the significance of your work (50 points).

·  ALL portions of this assignment must be completed in order for you to receive ANY credit. There are 250 total points on the line here!