The Pearl by John Steinbeck

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The Pearlby John Steinbeck
Symbolism Research Assignment
A novella based on an old Mexican folktale
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• The Pearl Symbolism Research Assignment
• This activity is intended to help you begin to
  interpret some of the symbols in Steinbeck's
  novel, by first building background knowledge on
  topics relevant to the text. Your job is to go to
  your teacher's Blackboard site and click on the
  power point link "Symbolism Research Assignment."
  Click on the picture in each slide and that will
  lead you to an informative website. You will
  need to choose and create an appropriate
  "Thinking Map" for each website to gather
  information. Your Thinking Map should have a
  heading and the topic should be the title of that
  page. You should notate a minimum of 10 things
  for each topic and staple your Thinking Maps
  together.
• By building background knowledge on these
  relevant topics, you can see how the
• literal (real) topics can be symbolic.
• A symbol is a person, place, object or action
  that stands for something beyond itself.
• Pearl
• Scorpion
• Ocean
• Canoe
• Village
• Storm

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• Process
• 1. Locate the pictures of your topics on the
  following slides.
• 2. Click on each image. This will link you to
  information on those topics.
• 3. Read through the texts.
• 4. Pick the Thinking Map that would be most
  appropriate for your note-taking on the topic.
• 5. Take a minimum of 10 notes per topic.
• 6. Once you begin reading the novel, consider how
  the topics can be interpreted symbolically.

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• Images of symbols from
• The Pearl appear on the next few slides.
• Click on the slide and it will link you to an
  informative website to get information for your
  Thinking Map.

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Scorpion
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Pearl
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Ocean
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Canoe
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Village
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Storm
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AcknowledgmentsInformation, images and links for
this activity are courtesy of the following
websites

• Images
• http//socrates.berkeley.edu7001/Gallery/castella
  nos/thumbnails/orangemountains.jpg
• http//yogateacher.com/text/retreats/mxraja/frontp
  age.html
• http//www.desertusa.com/oct96/du_scorpion.html
• http//www1.istockphoto.com
• www.corbis.com
• http//pearlsandjade.com/akoya_pearl.asp
• www. magickcanoe.com
• http//www.hickerphoto.com/data/media/171/ocean_wa
  ves_photos_t1504.jpg
• http//palimpsest.typepad.com/photos/sun_moon_star
  s/twilight.jpg
• http//downtheroad.org/Publishing/1TheRoadnoEnd/Im
  ages_Filesb/a11Nicaragua/beachhouse.JPG
• http//sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/uploaded_images/NHRed
  Rooster-791982.jpg
• http//earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews
  /ReleaseImages/20050111/02_thunderstorm_night.jpg
• http//www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/teens/images/s
  chool_270.jpg
• http//www.pwcgov.org/ImgLibrary/small/002454.jpg
• Reference
• http//www.desertusa.com/oct96/du_scorpion.html