Title
Book Name:
Book Code:
ISBN 13:
Published:
Thinking Literature – The Grapes of Wrath
669B
978-1-86968-612-3
2009
Author
Jeff Lilly
Acknowledgements
The publisher wishes to acknowledge the work of the following people:
Design:
Editor:
Cynthia Packman
Ben Allan
PUBLISHER
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COPYRIGHT
User Friendly Resources, 2009.
User Friendly Resources specialises in publishing educational resources
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Table of Contents
Understanding The Grapes of Wrath
- Bloom’s Taxonomy
4
Remembering
Sequencing 1
Sequencing 2
Characters
Character Find
Setting
Who Says What?
True or False?
The Grapes of Wrath Quiz
The Grapes of Wrath
Crossword
Analysing
6
7
8
10
11
13
14
15
Recognise the Character
Wanted – Tom Joad
Cause and Effect
Problems
Joad and His Family
Character Map 1
Character Map 2
The Grapes of Wrath Quiz 2
17
Understanding
Meaningful Events
Now Where in the
World is That?
Rounding out the Characters
Why Do That?
Defining Terms
True or False
Concepts and Terms
Why Say That?
Evaluating
18
Book Review
What Could Be Wrong?
The Defence Rests
Issues
Judging
Themes
What Would You Do?
A Grape Number of Symbols
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Applying
Diary
Character Interviews
Newspaper Report
Fix it!
What Might Have Been?
Advertisement
Crossword 2
Book Report
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34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
Creating
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
3
Lessons
A Piece of Your Own 1
A Piece of Your Own 2
A Piece of Your Own 3
Hypothesis Generation
An Alternative Dénouement
A Sequel
Structure
Twisting the Tale
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
Answers
59
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Understanding The Grapes of Wrath
Applying a Cognitive Structure
This workbook is designed to provide teachers with a structured approach to an understanding of
John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Most resources deal systematically with aspects such as plot,
characters, themes, settings, imagery and style, sociological perspectives and so on. While this text
most certainly provides activities which touches on these things, it does so within a framework,
so that students may move in their study from simple to more complex levels in their thinking
about this acclaimed novella. The framework is provided by Bloom’s (1956) Revised Taxonomy
(Cognitive Domain). Bloom believed that education should focus upon the mastery of subjects
and the promotion of higher levels of thinking, rather than the more common practice of merely
transferring facts. Information recall and the transfer of facts sits at the lowest level of training and
there is little depth and breadth in this approach when used in isolation. Students need to develop
higher level skills and it is important that able children have the opportunity to work at tasks that are
more demanding. Learning also needs to be thought- provoking and meaningful in the sense that
connections with real life are provided.
The ‘Taxonomy of Educational Objectives’ has since been revised and modified. In the 1990s Lorin
Anderson, a former student of Bloom, led a team of cognitive psychologists in revisiting the Taxonomy
in order to examine its relevance in a modern context and the result was a number of improvements.
The names of the six major categories were altered from noun to verb forms. Thinking is an active
process and verbs describe actions, not nouns. Sub-categories were also replaced in the same
way and some of them reorganised. The first level, ‘Knowledge’, was renamed as ‘Remembering’, as
knowledge is an outcome of thinking, not a form of it. ‘Comprehension’ and ‘Synthesis’ were retitled
to ‘Understanding’ and ‘Creating’ so that there was a better reflection of the nature of the thinking
implied and synthesis (create) and evaluation (evaluate) have been switched, the logic being that
creative thinking is more complex than critical thinking.
A critical focus of the revision is the taxonomy in use. The result is that it has become a more useful and
meaningful tool for curriculum planning, instructional procedures and assessment. Bloom’s Taxonomy
was originally seen as a tool best applied to earlier years of schooling. The revision, along with the
explanation and description of subcategories, has proved to be more universal and can be applied at
secondary and tertiary levels.
In many ways it helps that students work and attain proficiency at each level before moving to the
next, thus introducing a ‘mastery’ concept. In this approach to The Grapes of Wrath teachers may select
activities for individuals and groups according to the level at which they are working, or to select
activities to suit a sequence of instruction. More able students may therefore dip into activities at
lower levels if the teacher decides, for example, that they need to consolidate their understanding of
the sequence of events, or to revise settings or character knowledge. For most students however, it
is best to stick pretty much to the order of the activities and to work through them in order. Teachers
can also use formats given to make up their own extension activities, keep some activities aside for
homework or study activities, tackle them as a whole-of-class or group enterprise – there is plenty
of flexibility. In general, students will feel comfortable moving from lower to higher thinking levels,
and achieve a more solid and comprehensive understanding of the novel. Activities are varied so that
different learning styles are addressed where possible, and teachers may adapt individual activities
accordingly. For example the sequencing activity at the first level can be left as it is for those who are
visually oriented, or the events cut out separately and glued onto a sheet in the right order for those
who are more kinaesthetically inclined.
It is proposed also that this text not be used as the central resource to any study of The Grapes of
Wrath; rather it is a supportive and easily generated series of activities. In some English courses the
story may be studied from a number of perspectives. On the other hand it may be that some students
begin with one of the activities here, and then take it further in terms of any one of a number of ideas.
In short, this book is merely a resource, not a course in itself.
A summary of the Revised Taxonomy is reproduced below as a guide. There are a number of websites
available, and teachers may want to look at the variety of examples of verbs, sentence starters,
potential activities and products applicable to each level that can be adapted.
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CATEGORY
SUBCATEGORY
Remembering
Recognising – locating knowledge in memory, identifying
Recalling – retrieving, naming
Understanding
Applying
Analysing
Evaluating
Creating
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Interpreting – changing from one form of representation
to another, paraphrasing, translating, representing,
clarifying
Exemplifying – finding an example, illustrating
Classifying – determining that something belongs to a
category
Summarising – making a conclusion, abstracting,
generalising
Inferring – abstracting a theme or point, extrapolating,
interpolating, predicting, concluding
Comparing – detecting connections between two
concepts, contrasting, matching
Explaining – cause and effect, models
Executing – apply knowledge to a routine task, carrying
out
Implementing – apply knowledge to a non-routine task,
using
Differentiating – distinguishing the relevant from
the irrelevant, or important from unimportant,
discriminating, selecting, focussing, distinguishing
Organising – determining how elements fit into a
structure, integrating, finding coherence
Attributing – determining bias, point of view, intent,
values, deconstructing
Checking – finding inconsistencies or fallacies, ensuring
internal consistency, testing, monitoring, detecting
Critiquing – being aware of the appropriateness of a
procedure, behaviour, process, judging
Generating – obtaining alternatives or hypotheses based
upon criteria, hypothesising
Planning – working out a procedure for accomplishing a
task, producing, designing
Producing – inventing, constructing
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Sequencing 1
Remembering
There are thirty chapters in The Grapes of Wrath. Beside each chapter
description write the chapter number. No. 1 has been done for you.
1. The migrants to California on Route
66 face dangers such as hostility or
mechanical failure.
16. Used car hustlers discuss ways
12
of selling sub-standard cars to
displaced tenants.
2. Growing numbers of migrants are
17. Work is hard for cotton pickers. They
paid less and less by the big owners.
There is much anger.
buy their own bags. Sometimes the
scales are rigged.
3. Spokesmen for the banks tell the
18. Big owners in the Western states
tenants they must leave. Joe Davis
drives a tractor, destroying the
livelihood of his ‘own people.’
are nervous because things are
changing. Man needs to live and
work for a purpose.
4. Rose’s baby is stillborn and sent off
19. A vivid description of the
in an applebox in the rainstorm. The
Joads find a barn and Rose looks
after a starving man.
devastating drought which affected
the Plain States in the 1930s.
20. Three men are sent to cause trouble
5. The tenants are forced to get rid
at the Weedpatch camp dance but
they are dealt with.
of prized possessions at very low
prices, as they can’t keep them.
21. The family convenes and decides
6. The Joad brothers fix the car. A
to leave at daybreak, Grampa has a
change of mind.
man tells the family that the jobs in
California are a myth.
22. The Joads pick peaches. Tom
7. Advanced knowledge means
meets Casy, who is killed by strikebreakers. They leave.
greater crops, but the price goes
down and they are destroyed.
8. At the abandoned Joad place Tom
23. A devastating rainstorm strikes the
and Casy encounter Muley Graves
and ask him to eat with them.
land. There is no work and men are
turned to stealing.
9. A brief recount of California’s
24. A turtle crosses the highway on its
history. The dispossessed are
wrongly rejected and seen as
being ‘foreign.’
journey. A truck grazes it and sends
it spinning, but it keeps going.
25. The migrants look for ways to
10. The Joads begin their journey and
entertain themselves – music,
storytelling, religious meetings.
meet the Wilsons, Grampa dies and
is buried.
26. We learn about Uncle John’s
11. The Joads arrive in Weedpatch and
tragedy. Tom comes home and
surprises his father and mother.
are treated well. Tom finds work but
the other men have no luck.
27. The family arrive at Hooverville.
12. After being released from prison in
Casy sacrifices himself, Connie
leaves, and the family move on.
McAlester, Tom Joad hitches a ride
with a truck driver.
28. The migrants moving west get to
13. The Joads pick cotton while Tom
know each other and create small
temporary communities.
hides. Ruthie gives Tom away in
anger but Tom is not worried.
29. Tom Joad encounters ex-preacher
14. The land is now worked by tractors
Jim Casy, who remembers baptizing
him.
and mice, bats and weasels frequent
the abandoned houses.
30. On Route 66 Mae and Al own a
15. The Joads enter California, Noah
diner. Mae reluctantly sells bread to
a migrant.
leaves them, Sairy dies and Granma
also dies.
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Sequencing 2
Remembering
Number these events in the order that they occur in the story.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
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







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The Joads pass through Tehachapi and come to a great green valley.
The Joads reach the highway at Sallisaw and turn west.
The family leave Weedpatch, as only Tom has had a little work.
A deputy tries to shoot Floyd but hits a woman in the hand.
The men build a bank to hold back floodwaters from the boxcars.
Al was disappointed when Tom told him he didn’t bust out of jail.
Rose of Sharon feeds a starving man with her own milk.
There is a discussion about how and where Grampa is to be buried.
Tom hits the man who has killed Casy.
Tom Joad hitches a ride in a big red truck.
Rose of Sharon’s baby is stillborn.
Tom finds the ‘mayor’ of the Hooverville to be a bit strange.
The Joads set up a boxcar to live in while they pick cotton.
The Joads kill their pigs so that they have meat for the trip to California.
Mrs. Sandry scares Rose of Sharon with crazy talk about being wicked.
A border guard stops the Joads in Arizona and asks if they have plants.
Ma pierces Rose of Sharon’s ears with a needle.
Joad, Casy and Muley hide from Willy Feeley.
Tom goes looking for Uncle John, who is very drunk on whiskey.
The Joads first meet the Wilsons near Bethany.
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Characters
Remembering
Underneath each description, write the name of the character.
1.
Farmer near the Joad’s who refuses to be driven off his land.
2.
Strong wife and mother who holds the family together during its journey.
3.
Part Cherokee Indian at the Weedpatch Camp.
4.
Young Texan, husband of Rose of Sharon.
5.
Owner of the stalled Dodge. He and his wife befriend the Joads.
6.
Sixteen year old son who is mainly interested in cars and girls.
7.
Muley thinks this deputy sheriff is persecuting him.
8.
Oldest of the two Joad girls and pregnant when the trip begins.
9.
Chairperson of the Welcoming Committee at Weedpatch.
10. Tenant farmer who has lost his farm and is taking his family to California.
11. She and Al run a hamburger place on Route 66.
12. Ten-year-old son in the Joad family.
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13. The camp manager at Weedpatch.
14. Elder son, on parole. Served four years for manslaughter.
15. Young man at Hooverville. He strikes a deputy and Casy takes the blame.
16. Honorary head of the family and original owner of the Joad farm.
17. Former preacher who travels with the Joads to California.
18. She and her husband travel with the Joads but she is too sick to go on.
19. Oldest son who is a little deformed and slightly strange in behaviour.
20. Tractor driver who ploughs the land in Oklahoma and knocks over houses.
21. Pa Joad’s brother, who carries a lot of guilt with him.
22. Grampa’s obstinate and religious wife.
23. Migrant worker at Weedpatch who talks about rising against the landowners.
24. Youngest Joad daughter.
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