Setting and Symbolism in Arthur Miller's Life and Work

Fact, Question, Response

Use this organizer to keep track of your thoughts as you listen to the audio story. In the "Fact" column, record interesting or useful factual information you learn about the topic. In the "Question" column, write questions that occur to you as you listen. Finally, in the "Response" column, make a list of responses to the story, either as they occur to you or in relation to one of the facts or questions you’ve listed.

T-Chart: Details and Their Meaning

As you listen to the story, write down details about Miller's living space in the left column, and what these details represented or symbolized in his life in the right column.

Language Identification Organizer

Listen closely and check off each phrase as you hear it.

• your house once belonged to Arthur Miller
• He felt he had to build a shack
• tools in the corner and they all smelled of raw pine
• He sort of talked his way through his plays
• altogether generous friend, and the best company
• lying on his back in the water smoking a cigar and telling jokes
• the toils and the triumphs and the fears of the common man
• They didn't have much money and I think Arthur was around Brooklyn after that
• he was playwright who had calluses on his hand
• some of the energy to keep working on his plays forever
• a kind of a stubborn, forceful, relentless quality