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Teaching East of Eden

A way to use this book that isn't as a doorstop.

  • Activities: 14
  • Quiz Questions: 55

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If you like modern-day versions of biblical stories, then East of Eden is definitely the novel for you. If your students have trouble making those connections feel relevant, then this is the teaching guide for you. 

In this guide you'll find

  • reading quizzes to check that students are following along with the text.
  • an activity that explores the parent-child relationships throughout the book.
  • tips for getting today's students excited about reading Steinbeck's (long and intimidating) masterpiece.

Pro tip: Have your students read the book online so they don't freak out about how long it is.

What's Inside Shmoop's Literature Teaching Guides

Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring literature to life.

Inside each guide you'll find quizzes, activity ideas, discussion questions, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

  • 13-18 Common Core-aligned activities to complete in class with your students, including detailed instructions for you and your students.
  • Discussion and essay questions for all levels of students.
  • Reading quizzes for every chapter, act, or part of the text.
  • Resources to help make the book feel more relevant to your 21st-century students.
  • A note from Shmoop’s teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the text and how you can overcome the hurdles.

Want more help teaching Teaching East of Eden?

Check out all the different parts of our corresponding learning guide.



Instructions for You

Objective: As you've probably noticed, East of Eden is long. Depending on the age of your students and how much reading they've done, this might even be the longest book they've read yet. This ongoing activity is here to help keep them on track and deter them from checking out halfway through by making students responsible for the trajectories of specific characters and themes, start to finish, culminating in presentations at the end.

Nothing like a little responsibility to the collective good to keep kids on track, right?

Materials Needed: Copies of East of Eden; copies of the novel journal template; computers with word processing or pen and paper for journal entries; PowerPoint or some other presentation tools (optional)

Step 1: Kick this activity off before your students even crack the spines of their books by assigning them characters and themes they'll be responsible for tracking throughout the entirety of the text. Your students have no clue who any of these folks or themes are at this point, so it's on you to break it down.

Here's a handy round-up for you of the major players to assign to your class, complete with links to our character analyses. See? You help your kids, we help you, go team. Give each student two of the following characters to be responsible for as they read:

Let your kids know that some of these people die but their legacies live on—so if they find themselves dealing with a character's death, then going forward they should keep an eye out for their influence from beyond the grave.

You also need to assign each student two of the following themes to track throughout the book. We've included links to our theme analyses here for you, too, because sharing is caring.

Step 2: Introduce your students to the novel journal rubric, explaining that the purpose is to trace the evolution of themes and characters throughout the text. When characters no longer play a major role in the text directly (a.k.a. die), students should examine how they resonate with those who remain on center stage.

Hook students up with the novel journal template below and walk them through it. We recommend having them complete the template five times over the course of the book—there are fifty-five chapters total, and you should divide their responses up as works best for you.

Novel Journal Assignment
East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Trace the following in your novel journal:

  • The development of the two characters you are working with
  • The development of the two themes you are working with

Find passages as you read that relate to your two themes and characters. For each set of pages due, you must have two passages for each element, for a total of eight passages for every reading assignment. For each passage, you must also write a few sentences of analysis.

Plan to submit these together in a portfolio when you've finished reading the novel.

Passage and page numberAnalysis
(Character 1)
Passage 1:


Passage2:		1:


2:
(Character 2)

Passage 1:


Passage2:		1:


2:
Theme 1

Passage 1:


Passage2:		1:


2:
Theme 2

Passage 1:


Passage2:		1:


2:

 Step 3: Once you're all finished reading, students will take their journals and use them to generate a presentation about their characters and themes. These can take the form of PowerPoint presentations, though you should also feel free to let them bust out their poster project skills or some other creative format. No matter what form their presentations take, though, they should include the following:

  • Address each of the characters and themes and their evolution throughout the text
  • Include specific, cited excerpts from the text to support their observations and claims
  • Explore the significance of each character and theme to the novel as a whole
  • Include visuals, either cited from the web or created originally

Step 4: Be sure to leave time for presentations, and task students who have worked on the same characters and themes with asking questions as their peers present. Everyone else should be scribbling furiously in their notebooks of course, learning from their classmates as they present.

Instructions for Your Students

Objective: Have you picked up your copy of East of Eden yet? It's hefty, that sucker is. This activity is going to help you cut a path through this beastly text, focusing your attention on a couple of characters and themes and letting your classmates clue you in about the others. Go team, right?

Step 1: Since you haven't read the book, your teacher is going to kick this off for you by assigning you two characters and two themes to track throughout your reading. So, um, pay attention.

Step 2: Your teacher is going to hook you up with a novel journal rubric. Look it over to make sure it makes sense—you're going to be filling it out several times, and doing so correctly right out of the gate will only save you headaches down the road.

Step 3: Once you're all finished reading, it's time to take your journal entries and use them to generate a presentation about your characters and themes. Your teacher will let you know their preferred presentation format, but no matter what their preference, you should totally have fun and get creative with this. Be sure your presentation includes the following:

  • Addresses each of the characters and themes and their evolution throughout the text
  • Includes specific, cited excerpts from the text to support your observations and claims
  • Explores the significance of each character and theme to the novel as a whole
  • Includes visuals, either cited from the web or created originally

Step 4: During presentations, be prepared to ask students questions who have worked on the same characters and themes as you. When your classmates present on themes and characters you haven't been tracking, be sure to take notes—after all, they're kind of the experts on these matters at this point.