of Mice
and Men
This 6-week unit engages 9th-grade students in a deep exploration of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men through the essential question: "Why do people hold onto dreams even when they seem impossible?" Students analyze how dreams function across different characters and circumstances, then create a performance task connecting the novel's themes to contemporary experiences, either through interviewing a community member or through comparative literary analysis.
Unit’s Big Idea (Universal relevance, transferrable, provocative)
Dreams as Human Necessity (Dreams as Key Part of Human Experience)
Unit’s Enduring Understanding (meant to be carried into other classes, texts, and life experiences)
People need dreams and hopes to give their lives meaning and purpose, even when those dreams seem impossible to achieve.
Essential Question to frame unit
“Why do people hold onto dreams even when they seem impossible?”
By the end of this unit, students will:
This unit isn't just about reading an old book. It's about understanding:
The skills students learn—analyzing texts, using evidence, making connections, writing academically—will help them in school, work, and life.
Of Mice and Men is a canonical text that offers rich opportunities for thematic analysis, character study, and critical examination of the American Dream. Steinbeck's accessible prose and compelling narrative make it appropriate for 9th graders while still providing depth for sophisticated analysis.
The theme of dreams, and the barriers preventing their achievement, resonates powerfully with contemporary students, particularly those from marginalized communities. Students connect personally with:
This unit doesn't shy away from the novel's challenging themes: racism, sexism, ableism, economic inequality (classism), and violence. Instead, it provides structured opportunities for students to analyze systems of power and connect historical injustices to contemporary issues. This develops students' critical consciousness while honoring the complexity of these topics.
Beyond content knowledge, students develop transferable skills that are applicable to multiple disciplinary and content areas:
This unit integrates evidence-based practices. Each of these will be explained in greater detail below.
This unit was designed with Common Core Standards as its foundation, making it transferable and adaptable for use across the United States and internationally in schools following the Common Core. However, this unit also contains California-specific enhancements. It incorporates California ELA Standards and English Language Development (ELD) Standards, making it particularly effective for California's diverse student population. (See UBD Overview tab for specific standards). Even if you're not in California, the ELD standards provide research-based scaffolds that benefit ALL students, particularly, multilingual learners1, students with limited academic language exposure, or students who are still developing their analytical writing skills. Click here to learn more.
Understanding by Design (UbD), developed by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins, reimagines curriculum planning through backward design. Instead of starting with lessons (the typical approach), UbD begins by defining learning goals and transfer skills (Stage 1), moves to planning assessments (Stage 2), and only then designs instructional activities (Stage 3). By focusing on deep understanding over memorization, this framework creates engaged, meaningful learning experiences where students can apply their knowledge in novel contexts. Click here to learn more.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers a practical framework for creating inclusive learning environments. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, UDL asks educators to provide multiple entry points: varied ways to spark engagement, diverse formats for presenting information, and different options for students to express their understanding. These three principles recognize that students differ in what motivates them, how they process information, and how they demonstrate learning. By building in this flexibility from the start, we create more equitable learning opportunities for all students. Click here to learn more.
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy builds upon the Asset-Based Pedagogies that came before it but presents the need to not only affirm and connect to students’ cultural backgrounds, but also to sustain them through schooling.
--California Department of Education
Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (e.g., Paris & Alim) extends the asset-based approaches that preceded it–including Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings) and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (Gay and Hammond)—by moving beyond affirmation and connection to active preservation of students' cultural identities throughout their educational experience.
While honoring the foundational principles of earlier frameworks, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) advances the conversation. Rather than simply accepting students’ backgrounds (e.g., Culturally Relevant Pedagogy) or linking instruction to their cultural knowledge and lived experiences (e.g., Culturally Responsive Pedagogy), this approach positions schools as spaces that actively perpetuate, rather than diminish, the cultural practices of communities of color.
Additionally, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy champions equity across racial and ethnic groups, working to guarantee access and opportunity while empowering students to critically examine and challenge dominant societal power structures.
Please note: This unit also adheres to Culturally Sustaining/Revitalizing Pedagogy3.
The N-word appears throughout Of Mice and Men. This deeply harmful racial slur has been used to dehumanize and oppress Black people throughout history, particularly during slavery and segregation in the United States. Its origins trace back to the Latin niger (meaning "black"), which evolved through Spanish and Portuguese into a term that was deliberately weaponized as a tool of systemic racism.
Preparing Your Students: Before beginning the novel, you must prepare students for this language. Black and African American students especially need advance warning as encountering this word without preparation can cause real harm. Take time to discuss the word's history and its ongoing impact. Make space for students to share their thoughts and feelings about seeing it in the text.
Classroom Norms: Establish clear expectations: the N-word should never be spoken aloud in your classroom. When reading passages aloud, replace it with "N-word." In all written materials—student work, anchor charts, assessment responses—students should use "N-word" or "n—".
Resources for Preparation: Below are resources to help you prepare yourself and your students for engaging with this text responsibly.
Flexibility and adaptation are key! This unit provides a theoretical framework. Stages 1 and 2 establish essential foundations, but Stage 3 (lesson plans & activities) should be adapted to fit your classroom context. The Steinbeck in the Schools website offers excellent lesson plans and resources for Of Mice and Men. As long as activities align with Stage 1 goals and support students in completing the Stage 2 performance task, feel free to modify daily instruction as needed.
Also, please remember, you know your students best. Feel free to:
The backward design structure allows for flexibility in how you teach while maintaining clarity on what students need to learn.
Teaching Of Mice and Men through the lens of dreams allows students to grapple with profound questions about hope, dignity, power, and the American experience, questions that remain urgently relevant today. By designing a unit that is Common Core-aligned, culturally sustaining, and created with Universal Design for Learning principles in mind, we can ensure that all students will access this powerful text and see their own experiences reflected in the curriculum.
This is more than a literature unit. It's an opportunity for students to:
When students see their lives as worthy of academic study, they become not just consumers of literature, but creators of meaning and agents of change.
1 Throughout this unit, the term “multilingual learners” (MLLs) will be used. The field of teacher education has increasingly adopted multilingual learners to replace deficit-focused language such as “English Learners.” This terminology reframes how we view students developing proficiency in multiple languages, positioning their linguistic diversity as an asset. Though "English Learners" (ELs) remains in use for compliance and administrative purposes, especially when identifying students needing English instruction, MLLs offers a more comprehensive term that celebrates the totality of students' language capabilities rather than highlighting what they lack.
2 Taken from https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/pl/culturallysustainingped.asp
3 Culturally Sustaining/Revitalizing Pedagogy builds on Paris and Alim's framework but addresses the specific context of Native American students. Western colonization didn't just marginalize Native cultures; it actively worked to erase Indigenous languages, belief systems, and ways of life. As such, Culturally Sustaining/Revitalizing Pedagogy focuses specifically on reclaiming and revitalizing what was systematically stripped away through colonization. This unit also embeds this approach throughout.