Based on the novel, this classic production of The Grapes of Wrath is directed by John Ford and stars Henry Fonda.
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"The writer is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures for the purpose of improvement. . . Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and celebrate Man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat, and for courage, compassion and love."
-- Steinbeck in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech
"...But I like to think how nice it's gonna be, maybe in California. Never cold. An' fruit ever'place, an' people just being in the nicest places, little white houses in among the orange trees ..."
-- Ma Joad, The Grapes of Wrath, page 124
"They's stuff goin' on and they's folks doing things. Them people layin one foot down in front of the other, like you says, they ain't thinking where they're goin', like you says-but they're all layin''em down in the same direction, jus' the same. An' if ya listen, you'll hear a movin', an' a sneakin', an' a rustlin', an'-an'a res'lessness. They's stuff goin' on that the folks doin' it don't know nothin' about-yet. They's gonna come sompin outa all these folks goin' wes'-outa all their farms lef' lonely. They's gonna come a thing that's gonna change the whole country."
-- Jim Casy, The Grapes of Wrath, page 236
"...Okie means you're scum. Don't mean nothing itself, just the way they say it. But I can't tell you nothin'. You got to go there. I hear there's three hunderd thousan' of our people there-an' living like hogs, 'cause ever'thing in California is owned. They ain't nothin' left. An' them people that owns it is gonna hang to it if they got ta kill ever'body in the worl' to do it. An' they're scairt, an' that makes 'em mad. You got to see it. You got to hear it. Purtiest goddamn country you ever seen, but they ain't nice to you, them folks. They're so scairt an' worried they ain't even nice to each other.
--"older man", The Grapes of Wrath, page 281
"We-done-what we could"
--Pa Joad, The Grapes of Wrath, page 604
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Teaching the Grapes of Wrath
"California Reads" Book of 2002 This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Steinbeck and the California Council for the Humanities in partnership with the California Center for the Book is encouraging all Californians to read The Grapes of Wrath, one of his greatest works. The Writing Comany (part of the Social Studies School Service family) is proud to provide guidance for teachers in selecting resources to help their students appreciate and understand this classic work of literature.
Historical Context | John Steinbeck | The Grapes of Wrath | Supplementary Teaching Materials | Contemporary Connections | Special Discount | Online Resources
Historical Context of the Novel  The setting of the novel The Grapes of Wrath is as much of a character as any of the Joads.  The historical context of the Great Depression and specifically the Dust Bowl that displaced thousands of Midwesterners from their homes drives the action of the story. Visually introduce students to the Great Depression through photographs and posters depicting scenes from the era or through videos such as Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? and the History Channel's The Great Depression. The video Weedpatch from the California's Gold series features an oral history interview with migrant laborers from the same federal labor camp portrayed in the novel.  Have students read nonfiction accounts of life in the Great Depression such as Life during the Great Depression, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel, or Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp. A particularly relevant resource is the book The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to The Grapes of Wrath, a collection of newspaper articles on migrant farm workers written by Steinbeck himself in 1936, three years before The Grapes of Wrath. Excerpts from fictional accounts such as Rose's Journal: The Story of a Girl in the Great Depression from the Young American Voices series and Treasures in the Dust can also be used to paint a picture of the era. Finally, good sources for reproducible activities to teach about the era are Document-Based Activities on the Great Depression and The National Center for History in the Schools's The Great Depression and the Arts.
Search for more materials for teaching about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl
About John Steinbeck
The life of John Steinbeck is fascinating in its own right. Growing up in the Salinas Valley, the setting of many of his novels, John Steinbeck is also considered an important figure in California history. Steinbeck's life is explored in several videos:
An Impression of John Steinbeck, writer, A&E's John Steinbeck—An American Writer, and Great Writers Series: John Steinbeck.
An anthology of Steinbeck's life containing biographical material, critical essays, and other readings is also available in the Literary Companion Series.
The Grapes of Wrath
 While students can read The Grapes of Wrath in paperback format, there are also other creative ways for teachers to present the material. Technologically savvy students may enjoy reading the book on CD-ROM. The CD-ROM appropriately titled The Grapes of Wrath contains the full-text of the novel plus features such as a hyperlinked glossary, an annotated map of the Joads' travels, and primary and secondary source materials.
 Teachers can also supplement the text of The Grapes of Wrath with John Ford's video version of the work. (The pictures in the "film strip" on the left side of this page are stills from this movie). A great resource to use in conjunction with the book and the movie version of The Grapes of Wrath is the video Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, and the Depression: A Video Commentary. The 25-minute video compares the novel to the video and explores the question of how the The Grapes of Wrath reflects the actual experiences of people living during the Depression. The book Reading the Movies: Twelve Great Films on Video and How to Teach Them contains a chapter devoted to The Grapes of Wrath which contains discussion questions and study questions to help students "read" the film as thoroughly as the book.
Supplementary Teaching Materials
Several types of supplementary materials to enhance student learning are available. The time-saving learning packet Horizons in Literature Series: The Grapes of Wrath contains reproducible activities and tests, plot timelines, and chapter-by-chapter plot timelines and other resources. Similarly, the teacher-created curriculum unit Novel Curriculum Unit Series: The Grapes of Wrath contains reproducible worksheets, quizzes, and tests, but also emphasizes the relationship of the novel to socio-historical events.
The book Understanding The Grapes of Wrath from the Literature in Context series contains scholarly essays and primary source documents as well as in-depth discussion questions to help students analyze the work.
A unique resource for the classroom is the transparency set The Way We Saw It in Illustration and Art Series: The Grapes of Wrath and Depression-Era America. The set contains 12 eye-catching transparencies (photographs, political cartoons, illustrations) and a 20-page teacher's guide suggesting four lesson plans.
To get students' creative juices flowing, use the
American Literature CD-ROM from the Literature Classic Companions series. The CD-ROM includes creative writing activity prompts related to 6 different novels including The Grapes of Wrath as well as a built-in word processor to get students writing.
Contemporary Connections
The themes and issues in the novel The Grapes of Wrath can lead to further classroom discussion and learning. You may want to have your students make connections between the historic events depicted in the novel and contemporary ramifications of these events. For instance, students may be interested in learning more about labor issues. You can use the Jackdaw primary source collection Labor Movement in America to provide a general overview of the labor movement in America from Jamestown to the present. For a specific focus on California issues, you may want to foster discussion on California labor activist Cesar Chavez and his fight for rights for migrant farm workers. Students can learn more about Chavez's struggle by watching the award-winning documentary The Fight in the Fields and reading the companion book. To get students actively engaged in the topic, have students reanact Chavez's fight by using the play "Cesar Chavez" in the California Reader's Theatre Plays Set 1 (also available separately as a downloadable eBook). 
For current examples of labor and migrant struggles, students can read the books Stolen Dreams: Portraits of Working Children and
Migrants and Refugees: Millions of People on the Move, or do research using the CD-ROM Amnesty Interactive.
The collection of reproducible activities Teaching Human Rights and the book Stand Up For Your Rights are both based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and are a good way to teach students about current issues such as homelessness and hunger in the U.S. and around the world.
The issues of social class and the social impact of environmental events are other examples of topics introduced in the The Grapes of Wrath that have contempory ramifications.
To launch a contemporary discussion of social class, use the kit The Material World to teach about the widely divergent lifestyles of people around the world and have students reflect on their own views on social class after watching the video People Like Us: Social Class in America. The migration of the Joads and thousands of other Midwesterners to California was precipitated by the "Dust Bowl", an environmental event partially caused by human activity (overfarming). You may wish to have students investigate the social impact of other similar environmental events such as the Irish Potato Famine or concentrate more on the human causes of environmental events like in the case of the Great Plague and Fire of London (overpopulation). Then students can research current environmental conditions by using the book and CD-ROM World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems-The Fraying Web of Life or the curriculum unit Global Environmental Problems: Implication for U.S. Policy.
Teaching The Grapes of Wrath does not need to be limited to the subject of literature, but can extend to many other subjects such as history, global education, and sociology.
Special Discount Purchase The Grapes of Wrath Curriculum Bundle, a collection of six of the quality resources reviewed above, and receive 10% off the cost of purchasing each item separately!
Online Resources Search our database for online activities and Web links related to The Grapes of Wrath.
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