Welcome to Inglewood High School's Steinbeck Festival Website! The festival features the literature of the Nobel Prize laureate, John Steinbeck. The festival runs from June 5-19, 2012.
John Steinbeck – his life, his literary works and their meaning have been scrupulously analyzed by scholars for the last 50 years.
Last summer, I had the extraordinary opportunity to study the life and works of John Steinbeck for three weeks at the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “Steinbeck Institute”. The institute was lead by Dr. Susan Shillinglaw, of San Jose State University and John Gilley, scientist and researcher at Stanford University. The participants were teachers from around the country.
To say that the Institute was ‘transformational’ would be an understatement. I have loved reading John Steinbeck since I was in high school. Even with a detailed compendium of notes (my notes took up an entire spiral notebook), a personal library full of Steinbeck novels and bunches and bunches of pictures, I am still a novice.
The aim of this year’s festival is to expose our students to an extraordinary American author and activist. The activities are simple – they are designed to inform, to entertain and to encourage discussion. The festival activities are not meant for teachers to drill down into the meaning of every passage and theme. You will find that your students will welcome a respite from the daily grind and read a short story for pleasure, or listen to an audio recording for entertainment.
Do as much or as little as you wish. There are seven activities to choose from. The audio files can be played via the internet. All you need is some speakers to connect to your laptop. The movies are borrowed from the LA Public Library, and must be returned and re-checked out every two days, so they must be reserved.
Before you begin your activities, do two things:
1. Give your students the paper with writing prompts that you will collect and give to me for statistics. You can write them on the board for a warm up or use the copies provided.
2. Play the audio file from the high school teacher to his students. It is an open letter to them explaining his fascination with John Steinbeck and his characters. This audio gives an overview of Steinbeck’s most famous characters from “Of Mice and Men”, “Cannery Row” and the Grapes of Wrath. This is an excellent opener on why a high school student would want to read this author’s works.
Listen to “Open Letter to Students about Steinbeck” Audio / Duration: 4:23
This audio can be found on the internet at
http://archive.org/details/Sheehy_TeacherTalk_UponReadingSteinbeck_17November2006
A special thanks goes to Mr. Clifford Johnson who made the fantastic “Steinbeck Festival” banner that is displayed in the A building.
Enjoy!
Gail Atley
Last summer, I had the extraordinary opportunity to study the life and works of John Steinbeck for three weeks at the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “Steinbeck Institute”. The institute was lead by Dr. Susan Shillinglaw, of San Jose State University and John Gilley, scientist and researcher at Stanford University. The participants were teachers from around the country.
To say that the Institute was ‘transformational’ would be an understatement. I have loved reading John Steinbeck since I was in high school. Even with a detailed compendium of notes (my notes took up an entire spiral notebook), a personal library full of Steinbeck novels and bunches and bunches of pictures, I am still a novice.
The aim of this year’s festival is to expose our students to an extraordinary American author and activist. The activities are simple – they are designed to inform, to entertain and to encourage discussion. The festival activities are not meant for teachers to drill down into the meaning of every passage and theme. You will find that your students will welcome a respite from the daily grind and read a short story for pleasure, or listen to an audio recording for entertainment.
Do as much or as little as you wish. There are seven activities to choose from. The audio files can be played via the internet. All you need is some speakers to connect to your laptop. The movies are borrowed from the LA Public Library, and must be returned and re-checked out every two days, so they must be reserved.
Before you begin your activities, do two things:
1. Give your students the paper with writing prompts that you will collect and give to me for statistics. You can write them on the board for a warm up or use the copies provided.
2. Play the audio file from the high school teacher to his students. It is an open letter to them explaining his fascination with John Steinbeck and his characters. This audio gives an overview of Steinbeck’s most famous characters from “Of Mice and Men”, “Cannery Row” and the Grapes of Wrath. This is an excellent opener on why a high school student would want to read this author’s works.
Listen to “Open Letter to Students about Steinbeck” Audio / Duration: 4:23
This audio can be found on the internet at
http://archive.org/details/Sheehy_TeacherTalk_UponReadingSteinbeck_17November2006
A special thanks goes to Mr. Clifford Johnson who made the fantastic “Steinbeck Festival” banner that is displayed in the A building.
Enjoy!
Gail Atley