I am in need of a lesson on the historical and social context of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.For my speaking exam, we are supposed to teach a class...

With the socialist leanings of John Steinbeck, a lesson
that could be presented to the class is that of the Great Depression's history of the
Communist movement.  As unemployment was unknown at that time in the USSR, the
Communists appealed to the dispossessed of the 1930s, such as the "bindle stiffs"
of Of Mice and Men and the others unemployed throughout the
United States, offering them hope through a class revolution which would
distribute wealth. 

The concept of the brotherhood of men
uniting in one cause for the lower classes is one with which Steinbeck greatly concerned
himself.  In Grapes of Wrath, written two years after Of
Mice and Men, for instance, Tom Joad remarks at the book's
end,

"Well,
maybe like Casy says, a fella ain't got a soul of his own, but on'y a piece of a big
one...."

This idea of the one
soul of man as the solution to his alienation is clearly a motif of the social setting
of Steinbeck's novella.  For, it is in friendship and fraternity that man "can measure
himself" as Crooks says, and he can keep from getting "mean" as George remarks, and he
can find meaning and purpose to his life as illustrated in George and Lennie's
dream.

With the concept of socialism/communism as part of
the motif of Of Mice and Men, the leader of the discussion can
direct the class to find evidence of this thinking within the setting of the Great
Depression in Steinbeck's novella.  That is, an exploration of how socialism, or perhaps
even communism, is profferred as a solution to the alienation of the bindle stiffs can
be made with Steinbeck's work.