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Brannan: A Writer's Workshop
A Writer's Workshop: Crafting Paragraphs, Building Essays
Bob Brannan, Johnson County Community College

"The Great Tide Pool", excerpt from Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck

Thought Questions

THE GREAT TIDE POOL

John Steinbeck

These writing prompts are followed by text boxes for your input. If you are working online and your instructor has given you the go-ahead, you can e-mail your work to him or her by clicking the "E-mail Your Answers" button. You can also e-mail a copy to yourself as a record of your work. If you are working offline, you will have to copy your answers (CTRL-C on most systems) and paste them (CTRL-V) into a text document to retain a record of your work.



1

An Interactive Tour

This site, created by an MIT student, offers an interactive tour of an Oregon tide pool. Look around the site, and try to absorb the scientific information it presents. Now, think about how your impressions of tide pools have changed. Has your new scientific knowledge about tide pools increased your appreciation of the Steinbeck piece? Has it decreased your appreciation? Which account of tide pools appeals to you more, the scientific one or the more artistic one? Which would you recommend to a friend who wanted to learn about tide pools?

2

Saving the Coast

Like many natural sites, the California coast is threatened by development. This site is dedicated to preserving places like the tide pool Steinbeck describes. Did reading Steinbeck's description make you more sympathetic to environmental causes such as the one the site describes? Before you read the article, what were your feelings about the environment and environmentalism? Should jobs and affordable housing be sacrificed to preserve tide pools? Why or why not?