Activity
1. Distribute copies of Chapter 14 to each student.
2. Read through the selection in class. Ask for volunteers or assign students to read out loud.
3. It would be beneficial for the teacher to stop periodically to check for understanding. Ask questions relevant to what has been read, review the plot, and emphasize images.
4. Divide students into collaborative groups. Students should move desks so that they can work closely.
5. Pass out questions to each group. Assign a certain number of questions to each group. Groups will only do what questions are assigned to them. They will be the experts of these questions.
- What two things could be done with spoiled meat?
- What did the miracles of chemistry do for the meat packing industry?
- Describe some of the methods used to “improve” the hams.
- Describe the environment in which the sausages were created.
- What “other” ingredients often made it into the sausages?
- What was the one mercy the daily grind of work gave to Elzbieta? Describe this.
- Why were Ona, Elbieta, and Jurgis beaten?
- What was Juregis’ personal trouble?
- What was happening with Antanas?
- How was Ona going to pieces?
6. Allow groups time to work on their assigned questions. They should record their answers on the poster paper, so that they have a visual aid when they do their presentations.
7. When each group has had enough time to respond to their questions, move into the reporting phase.
8. Inform students that, in a sense, they are teaching the rest of the class about their questions.
9. Each group should come up one at a time with their visual aid and go over their responses with the rest of the class.
10. Ask questions that direct students to make predictions about the impact of the book. Ask them what they thought of the images conjured up by the writing.
11. In a guided reflection at the end of class ask students what the impacts of the book/chapter might be and then have them compare these with what is said in the brief biography of Upton Sinclair. (Give students background on the book and author. (http://www.online-literature.com/upton_sinclair/)
12. Explain that The Jungle was pivotal in changing the food laws in the United States. Upon publication in 1906 it prompted a government investigation of the meat packing plants in Chicago and the subsequent development of regulations.
13. Ask students if they are able to identify any other works of fiction that have changed the society of the time or later.
Homework
If applicable
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