New Jersey Students Of Different Backgrounds Connect By Studying Steinbeck

The New York Times (1/17, A20, Hu, Subscription Publication) reports that students in Plainfield and Westfield, New Jersey, "are engaged in an unusual literary experiment, studying" John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" "in a collaboration intended to provide lessons between the lines of Steinbeck's prose." Students in Westfield are mostly white and affluent while Plainfield's students are mostly black and Hispanic and poorer. The students found connections through "the project, which cost less than $1,600 for busing, supplies, food and books."