John Steinbeck: Voice of a Region, Voice for America

FAIN: ES-50348-10

San Jose State University Research Foundation (San Jose, CA 95112-5569)
Susan Shillinglaw (Project Director: March 2010 to April 2016)
William Gilly (Co Project Director: March 2010 to April 2016)

Funding details:
Original grant (2010) $164,815.00
Supplement (2011) $9,997.34

A three-week summer institute for twenty-five K-12 teachers on the work of John Steinbeck.

The Summer Institute will examine why John Steinbeck remains relevant as a novelist, social critic, and ecologist, and endures as a voice of twentieth century American values and ideas. The Institute's target audience is high school teachers. The project objective is to demonstrate why Steinbeck should be presented as a central figure in secondary English curriculum, and how his work continues to address the complexity of the American populace. Scheduled for July 17 - August 5, 2011 on the Monterey Peninsula - "Steinbeck country" - workshops will examine the impact of the local agricultural and fishing industries on Steinbeck's major works and how his unique ecological perspectives can be integrated into today's high school science and literature curriculum.