copyright 1999, Sirpa Grierson

Preparation Activities http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/broadcast.html This talks about different ways to prepare your students before reading the novel.  They suggest to begin talking about themes and giving the students an opportunity to discuss sensitive issues. Looking Closely at the Novel http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/novel.html Includes several study questions for the novel on character, point of view, setting, plot and symbols. To Kill a Mockingbird,  Then and Now http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/ This site contains preparation activities, sample lesson plans, instructional activities, a student center, historical archives, discussion groups, and links to other pages about the book. Themes and Issues http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/issues.html This site covers the major themes and issues in the novel, as well as topics for discussion. Companion Readings & Related Literary Works http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/other.html This is a list of additional reading to help expand on the theme of racism and the life of an African-American. Monroeville, Alabama http:www.chebucto.ns.ca/Culture/HarperLee/monroe.html Come visit the old courthouse and see the view that Jem, Scout and Dill had of the trial. Monroe County Heritage Museums http://www.tokillamockingbird.com/ Visit the historical sites of the novel. The Student Survival Guide www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Belmont_HS/tkm/ This website contains extensive information and great numbers of links to other historical background sites.  It is intended for students, but has great material for teachers. Brainstorming and Discussing: Heroes http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/brain.html This site contains ideas for brainstorming and discussing heroes, talking about words that different generations use and how that has changed, and talking about opinions and stereotypes.   Outward Appearances and Inner Qualities http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/out.html This is just an activity that teachers can do with their students to demonstrate the idea that people are not always as they seem. Teaching with Movies http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/to-kill-a-mocking-bird.html A very helpful source in that it has tips about the movie, benefits, possible problems, historical contexts, background, other related movies and books, and possible themes to discuss. Special Projects http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/sp.html This is a list of project suggestions made by teachers who have already taught the novel, including a response log, draw a map, create a collage, new movie poster, produce a newspaper, etc.  Cyber-guide http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/tokil/mocktg.htm This guide enables students to participate in online activities related to the book.  It contains activities which involve everything from essays to reading comprehension to themes in the book.  It also has a list of links to other useful sites. Why the Mockingbird? http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/tokil/bird1.htm http://www.holoweb.com/cannon/northergn.htm http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/tokil/bird3.htm These websites contain facts, pictures, sound bytes, and other information on the characteristics and habits of the mockingbird. Juneteenth Pictorial Middlepassage http://www.juneteenth.com/middlep.htm A very elegant website in slide show format chronicling the circumstances and events surrounding the early slave trade. Makes mention of the author of the song “Amazing Grace” which would be a very fitting background while presenting the site as a slide show. Signs of the Times http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/085_disc.html Pictures of signs from the 1930s segregating whites from blacks and demonstrating other signs racial intolerance. “I Remember…” Reminiscences about the Great Depression" http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17451_18670_18793-53511--,00.html This website is a collection of firsthand accounts of the Great Depression. Federal Writers’ Project http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpaintro/exinterv.html A government website chronicling interviews of people living through the depression. Includes 10,000 excerpts from life histories. The American Memory: Great Depression http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mdbquery.html Government documents including narratives, periodicals, and sound bytes. The American Memory: Great Depression Photographs http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html Same archives as above limited to photographs. The Great Depression and the New Deal http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpaintro/intro01.html More context of the circumstances surrounding the Great Depression and Teddy Roosevelt’s New Deal. Price comparison http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-15481_19268_20778-52530--,00.html An interesting site comparing prices from the 1930s to prices today. Exploring themes http://www.quotationspage.com/ This website is a search engine connected to quotes from many sources. Students can use them to explore themes from the book-prejudice, racism, intolerance, courage, justice… From Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: A Child’s Reasoning http://docsouth.unc.edu/douglasslife/douglass.html#douglass39 Douglass reports his childhood thoughts on slavery in retrospect. Narrative of Solomon Northup http://docsouth.unc.edu/northup/northup.html Chapter I. The narrative of a free-born black man who is stolen while in a free state and the account of his twelve years as a slave. Site on the Scottsboro Boys trial http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm Infamous trial of nine black youths accused of raping to white girls. One of the most influential trials on race relations. A Sermon on Lynch Law and Raping http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/98/mock/lynch.html An excerpt from a sermon preached by Rev. E.K. Love. Letter From Eleanor Roosevelt expounding her opinions on lynching http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/015)) Rabies facts http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies/introduction/intro.htm A short background on rabies and the dangers if inflicted on humans. Provides some context to incident of Atticus shooting the rabid dog. “Strong Men” http://www.hhs.helena.k12.mt.us/Prody/amf/amfstman.html P oem from Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown. Study guide questions included. “To Kill a Mockingbird” http://www.filmsite.org/toki.html A very thorough website annotating each scene with remarkable detail and including full dialogue. Mockingbird Timeline http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/98/mock/tmlin.html Directions on creating a timeline documenting events from the book and actual events. Mapping Maycomb http://www.education-world.com/a_tsl/archives/00-1/lesson0005.shtml A lesson plan from Education World website detailing a mapping activity students may do as they read To Kill a Mockingbird. More useful information The following websites had more useful information, entire unit outlines, and other ideas for teaching To Kill a Mockingbird: http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/tokil/ http://www.slc.k12.ut.us/webweavers/jillc/mbird.html http://www.chipublib.org/003cpl/onebook/mockingbird.html Reading Activities (compiled by Sarah Sheranian) |Pre-Reading | During Reading | Post-Reading | Before Reading Resources 1. Kansas, Jane. “Harper Lee Biography.” 24 May 2004. http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/bio.html Contains general facts about Harper Lee to give students a glimpse of her personal life. This will help students connect events in the novel with her life. 2. Kansas, Jane. “Roy Newquist Interviews Harper Lee.” 25 May 2004. http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/roy.html This interview can acquaint students with Lee’s personality, her process writing To Kill a Mockingbird, her childhood, and her goals as a writer. This can help students understand the motivation behind the book’s creation and how Lee’s life is connected with the novel. 3. http://www.holoweb.com/cannon/northergn.htm This site has pictures of mockingbirds, facts about their lifestyle, and sound bites of a mockingbird’s call. This is important in familiarizing the students with the title’s reference and to spark the students’ interest. 4. “Setting.” A worksheet from Susan Davis. Simi Valley High School, Simi Valley, CA. Contains information about the relationship between the imaginary town/county of Maycomb and the actual geography of Alabama. This contextualizes the novel for the students, so they can understand where the events theoretically take place since the novel is historical fiction. 5. Johnson, Claudia Durt. Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird. “Interview: Growing Up White in the South in the 1930s.” http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/girl.html This interview shows students what it was like to be a white woman in the South. It addresses what “good families” were, what it meant to be a lady, the effects of the depression, and segregation. This will help students connect the fictional novel with real life experience of people who grew up during the time the novel takes place. 6. Johnson, Claudia Durt. Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird. “Interview: Growing Up Black in the 1930s in McCulleys Quarters, Alabama.” http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/mculley.html?tqskip1=1 This interview contrasts the previous one, giving the perspective of a black woman growing up in the South. This will help students contrast the white person’s and black person’s experience at the time. 7. Falck, Susan. “Jim Crowe Ligislation Overview.” The History of Jim Crowe. http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/resources/lessonplans/hs_es_jim_crow_laws.htm This article gives general information and statistics about segregation and miscegenation laws in the United States. This will familiarize students with race relations at the time the novel takes place and set up a context in which to analyze the issues of racism in the book. 8. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html This site contains thousands of pictures from the depression era, including pictures that show evidence of segregation. For students who are not familiar with the idea of segregation, especially for students who live in the West, these pictures will emphasize the reality of this intolerant practice. 9. http://www.chowchillahigh.k12.ca.us/schools/cuhs/teacher_sites/baker/public_html/teacher/ This activity prepares students to read the novel as they identify themselves with specific events/quotes in the novel before reading it. This provides text-self connections that will increase the students’ interest in the novel as they come across those parts with which they identified themselves. 10. http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/brain.html#wards This resource explains an effective way to prepare students for the strong, racial language in the novel. It helps students understand why the author used this language and what purpose it serves in the novel. This will decrease chances of students being offended by the language and provide a basis of understanding on which to discuss the rest of the novel. During Reading Resources 11. http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Belmont_HS/tkm/index.html This is a website that contains links with definitions to every difficult word in the novel. Students could use this to guide their reading, and teachers could use this site to create vocabulary lists. 12. A List of Characters worksheet from Susan Davis. Simi Valley High School, Simi Valley, CA. Student can use this to take notes about the characters as they read to keep the characters organized and clear in their minds. This will also guide students in their reading to prepare for characterization discussions after reading the novel. 13. Map activity from Susan Davis. Simi Valley High School, Simi Valley, CA. These page numbers can be used as hints to draw a map of Maycomb. This map can help students visualize the events in the novel as they take place and will deepen the student’s reading comprehension as they transfer the text into a map. 14. http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/novel.html These questions about setting help students think about how Maycomb represents any town and how the events of the novel are applicable to where the students live. This will help students apply the issues in the novel to their own lives. 15. Quizzes and answers/ Take-home questions for chapters 9-11 from Susan Davis. Simi Valley High School, Simi Valley, CA. These quizzes and questions can check for student reading and comprehension as well as guide the students’ reading if sent home as assignments. 16. Prediction Activity. Original idea. Sarah Sheranian. This activity teaches students about prediction and how it can help interpret a novel. It would increase student interest in the characters, as they experience what Scout did, and it would increase anticipation for the succeeding chapters as they predict what it to come. 17. “Discussion Questions and Activities.” To Kill a Mockingbrid by Harber Lee Resource Guide Online. http://www.chipublib.org/003cpl/onebook/questions.html Use to guide discussions in class to focus the reading on literary techniques and the main themes of the novel. These discussions help students connect the events in the novel together to shape their ideas about the novel’s message. 18. Tea with Miss Alexandra. http://home.cogeco.ca/~rayser3/litera1.htm#tea This is a fun activity to acquaint students with southern culture and etiquette. It also allows students to familiarize themselves with the characters and conduct character analysis. This is an exciting way to conduct class, as students can use their creativity and will lead the class discussions. 19. http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/Language_Arts/Literature/LIT0013.html This project teaches students journalistic writing and allows them to analyze a specific event in the novel. It will reinforce the events in the novel. 20. http://www.chipublib.org/003cpl/onebook/questions.html This creative writing prompt will help the students empathize with Boo Radley and allow them to interpret his character. After Reading Resources 21. Supplementary Texts http://www.chipublib.org/003cpl/onebook/questions.html , http://www.library.thinkquest.org/12111/other.html?tqskip1+1 , www.http://www.byubookstore.com These supplementary text could reinforce the main themes in the novel about racial segregation and discrimination. 22. Examining Discrimination. Original idea. Sarah Sheranian. www.dictionary.com. This activity helps students understand different types of discrimination, how these ideas are connected to the novel, and how they relate to their own lives. This will help students apply the themes and ideas in the novel to the present day. 23. Post-Reading Discussion Questions http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/novel.html These questions reinforce the novel’s main ideas and the literary techniques that develop the story. 24. Heroes Activity http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/brain.html This activity relates the novel to the idea of a hero and what the students think a hero is. It helps the students connect events and characters in the novel to this theme. 25. The Gothic Theme http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/gothic.html Contains information about the gothic elements in the novel and an activity that can be used to teach this more obscure aspect of the novel. Students can learn what gothism is and how Lee uses these elements to convey her main point. 26. Persuasive Writing Activity. Adapted from http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/brain.html This is an adapted activity that teaches students how to write persuasively using a topic they feel strongly about that is related to the novel. This reinforces the main ideas in the novel as well as help students bring these issues to modern context. 27. Mock Trial http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/resources/pdf/amlit_lp_courtroom3.pdf This activity can emphasize the events of the trial in the novel. It also teaches students the process of a trial and allows them to understand how the justice system works in their own country. 28. Discussion Questions for film http://www.chipublib.org/003cpl/onebook/questions.html After viewing the film version of the novel, these questions can focus students on how the film interpreted the novel. They will teach students to analyze film techniques and reinforce the book as a whole. Reading Guide Milton, Joyce.  Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird.  Woodbury:  NY.  Barron's, 1984. This book is a guide to reading the novel from a critical and appreciative point of view.  It contains background on the author's life and times, sample texts, term paper suggestions, and a reading list.  Useful to both teachers and students. Prentice Hall Study Guide Prentice Hall Study Guide;  To Kill a Mockingbird.  New Jersey:  Prentice Hall, 1999. This is a 38 page booklet covering everything and anything in connection with the work.  First is an "Overview of the Novel" comprising of the story elements.  Then there is a breakdown of the chapters in seven units discussing preteaching, teaching themes, and reading comprehension checks.  Next  is a series of writing ideas, dealing with provocative themes, the bibliography and further reading recommendations.  The last section includes several worksheets and a test. Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird Johnson, Claudia Durst.  Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird:  A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents.  Connecticut:  Greenwood Press, 1994. Content Reading and Literacy:  Graphic Organizer Alvermann, Donna E. and Stephen F. Phelps.  Content Reading and Literacy.  Boston:  Allyn and Bacon, 1998. This includes a figure to demonstrate a graphic organizer of a novel for a high school English class. The Secret Courts of Men's Hearts:  Code and Law Johnson, Claudia.  "The Secret Courts of Men's Hearts:  Code and Law in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird."  Studies in American Fiction.  Boston, MA (SAF).  1991 Autumn, 19:2, 129-39. An intriguing article examining the issues of judgment in the book and placing it in historical context to the time in which Lee wrote the book and the time in which the book is set.  Threatening Boundaries Johnson, Claudia Durst.  To Kill a Mockingbird:  Threatening Boundaries.  New York:  Twayne Publishers, 1994. A Character Comes to Life in the Classroom                 Schaefer, Brenda Vick.  "A Character Comes to Life in the Classroom."  English Journal. v.78 n.6  p 69-70, Oct 1989.   Miss Maudie comes to visit a high school classroom.  The students in her class loved the activity, and it could be done with any of the characters in the book successfully. Getting Together, Getting Along, Getting to the Business of Teaching and Learning Cintorino, Margaret.  "Getting Together, Getting Along, Getting to the Business of Teaching and Learning."  English Journal v82 n1 p 23-32, Jan 1993. This article is about facilitating small group work in the study of To Kill a Mockingbird. Lessons from Life Hoffman, Joan, E.  "To Kill a Mockingbird and lessons from life."  Notes Plus March 1998: 4-5. This is an article submitted by a teacher of a project suggestion.  She approaches the book as a book about life that students can learn from and her project involves the students creating their own Life's Little Instruction Book. Writing Portfolio Activities Ledbetter, Mary Ellen.  Writing Portfolio Activities.  West Nyack, New York:  The Center Applied Research in Education, 1998. This book gives several starting ideas for teachers.  My articles include "How to Design Group Projects for Novels" and "Creating a Journal Project for Novels."  Once a teacher starts brainstorming along with the book, they can custom design a project or journal for their unit and each class.

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Reading Resources and Unit Guide for this Novel