I cannot believe that Of Mice and Men is still studied at GCSE!

[upatdawn]

Does anyone else have a DC studying this text? My twin sons (currently in year 11) are doing it, my 20 year old son did it at gcse level, I even did it for my GCSEs (okay well my O levels!). How do they have any questions left to answer on it? I remember when I did it really not enjoying it, neither have any of my boys. So why is it still on the curriculum? There are so many other fabulous texts that schools could use!

Sorry for the rant people, I just wondered if anyone else feels this or if I just have an unnecessary hatred for Of Mice and Men

'But you don't study it. At least not today. You "study" it. I.e the teacher calls on you to read a page out and that's practically in depth analysis.'

If that has been your own experience of learning this novel then that's a shame but I assure you that in order to achieve GCSE students need to demonstrate insight and appreciation of the writer's use of language, structure and literary devices as well as analysing the significance, presentation and development of settings, characters themes etc etc.

There are plenty of more modern texts to choose from but it's often down to funding (a class set of 32 texts at £7.99 each, 8 sets in a year) and teachers using a text that they know well, have many resources for and also that has proven track record of being examined on successfully.

It would be BRILLIANT of more pupils read widely and experienced a diverse range of literature. This can be do outside of the classroom too!

Abra

Shakespeare is compulsory for all GCSE English Students (and also on NC for all KS3 too). They study several texts. Drama, prose, poetry. Highly challenging texts are taught that lend themselves to more sophisticated responses than say Of M and M.
Sorry for rant but sick to death of negative media coverage of education and views based on misinformation. :)

Sorry but I think Of Mice and Men has more depth than Mr Pip (which I did enjoy). I think the kids need to learn about the 1930s America and this is a good gentle introduction. (Yes my son is going to be bored with me talking about: the dust bowl, the great depression, the great trek west, and the great migration (poor blacks going north)).
It is also full of themes very much relevant to today.

Love Of Mice and Men. Beautiful story, simply told.

We did To Kill a Mockingbird. Loved it, but haven't read it since.
At A Level we did Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood, but I've yet to meet anyone else who did? Great book, but I still haven't been able to bring myself to read it again after analysing it to death :o

My DS did it for GCSE. He had a fantastic teacher. I had not studied it for 'O' level - I did Great Expectations which I absolutely hated. He also studied Great Expectations so I gave that another go and got to the same place again and gave up which is pretty unusual for me with books.

If your DS doesn't like the book, get him to watch the film with John Malkovitch and Gary (from Apollo 13).

obvisously - my DD just did Margaret Atwood's the Handmaiden for A level, so that's close! I think there are so many options for A level study, its quite possible noone else does quite the same combination...

Found out yesterday, having seen this thread in passing, that DD is going to be studying Mice and Men for GCSE!

Steinbeck is my fave author of all time.

OM&M is fairly short and the story is not hard to follow so keeps those students not too "into" literature interested.

It is also "blokey" which keeps the attention of boys who (generally) are the most difficult to keep attentive in literature studies.

There are also many different aspects and topics in the novel, allowing for loads of debate and discussion. History, economy, tolerance, relationships etc ....

I would love my DC's (15 and 12) to read Grapes Of Wraths sometime as it is the masterpiece of all time to me.

'Shakespeare is compulsory for all GCSE English Students'

Actually, on the Cambridge board IGCSE, which my son's school takes, you CAN take a non-Shakespeare option: either Arthur Miller or Journey's End. Shakespeare isn't compulsory. Though I believe they do the Sh. option at his school.

like Mice and men but also TKAM is amazing. I like most of the GCSE texts including Lord of the Flies. Also looking at View from the bridge which has alot in it.

Mummytime, but 1930s America is an interesting but arbitrary historical period to insist a GCSE student of literature ahould know about. You could just as easily say it is important for them to learn about colonialism as explored in Mr Pip.

*should

iGCSEs are not GCSEs! The National Curriculum includes Shakespeare at KS3 and 4 (that's ages 11 - 16). iGCSEs cannot be counted for the 5 GCSEs including maths and English measurement on government league tables because they do not meet the requirements of the NC.
That is why fee-paying schools, that do not have to compete in league tables can choose to use them. Recently Cambridge and Edexcell have had something called Certificate approved that are somewhat based on iGCSE but the certificates the students get just say Certificate and not iGCSE or GCSE. If your son is in a state school and they have chosen to do the Certificate then he will not have a GCSE English certificate however the grade will be considered equivalent to GCSE (not iGCSE English). If he's doing iGCSE then presumably he's in a fee-paying school where the teachers can afford to buy any text they want and aren't stuck with whatever stock they have. Lucky them!
BTW. I do know what I'm talking about but thanks for contradicting me; wonderful irony! (See the end of my last post).

Mr Pip is actually on one of the exam boards GCSE lit spec. Same old problem though, schools can't afford to buy in lovely new texts so teach whatthey have, ie TKAMB, Of M and M etc etc.

At GCSE my class did To Kill a Mockingbird which I loved, the other classes did Of Mice and Men and Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry. I read all 3 girly swot because I found the subject matter so interesting. Also enjoyed An Inspector Calls, though didn't study it had to write an essay of a fantastic production at The Garrick for A Level Theatre Studies. I loved Chaucer at school, and Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene at uni (think I was the only one!)

I love teaching M+M.

To throw a curveball into the thread, under the new syllabus this year (as well as M+M, of course!) my set 3s will be sitting an exam on 'About a Boy' by Nick Hornby. Just re-reading it now with a view to teaching it. Any thoughts?

Not my favourite novel, or even my favourite Steinbeck.

I'd be teaching LOTF every time for choice!

But I taught the top AND the bottom sets of last year's year 11s. Both got record Literature results. That's why OM&M is taught so widely - you can differentiate the teaching between A* & D targets whilst only needing one text across the year group.

There just aren't many novels you could do that with. Steinbeck's language/structure/symbolism are deceptively simple, so lower ability groups can engage with it, but still rewarding to analyse at a higher paper level.

Easier, also, if a teacher falls under a bus or goes on ML, say, - whole year group studying the same text makes it easier for the rest of the dept. to support new/cover staff.

& Quirrel - I don't know what was going on at your school at the time, but it most certainly wasn't teaching. You were short changed.

the lists issued by the exam boards are not that extensive, so schools go with what they can afford to buy, basically.

also, doesn't matter how many years a text has been taught, it's still the pupils' first time to sit the exam (or maybe second), so questions can be re-used. as a teacher, i find that i 'hit my stride' with a book around the 3rd time of teaching it, so there's a really good reason to keep to well-known texts - teachers are more experienced in teaching them.

I didn't read it for O level but I did read most of the Steinbeck books for fun at about that time- must have enjoyed them because after reading the first I went hunting for the others at the library. Can't remember them though so following this thread I shall have to read them again!

We did LOTF but also the appallingly dull Pincher Martin by Golding. Horrible book. My favourite O level book was My Family and Other Animals which I can't wait for my DC to be old enough for. Doesn't seem very challenging with hindsight but maybe it was deceptive.

Did anybody else do Strife by Galsworthy? We spent a term doing The Crucible but for some reason it got pulled from the syllabus and we switched to Strife instead.

No Shakespeare though and I do think I missed out now.