TKAM Overview Essays - Literature, Culture, To Kill A Mockingbird

English Ten: To Kill a Mockingbird Name: ______________________________________________________________________ Essential Questions: Why is racism dangerous? What is courage? What influences a person's character? Research: The Harlem Renaissance You will learn: . one of the most loved stories in American literature (and the most widely-read in American high schools) . about how both courage and racism can alter people's lives . about the importance of the Harlem Renaissance and the people involved Literary terms: colloquialism - a local or regional dialect expression frame narrative - when first person narrator starts as an adult who is remembering the past and returns again as the adult narrator at the end static and dynamic characters - Static characters remain the same throughout a literary work; dynamic characters change. Bildungroman -- a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character; a coming-of-age story review: plot structure (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), symbol, point of view, conflict, characterization, static and dynamic characters, active setting, epigraph, and foreshadowing Other possible viewing and reading: . CNN special - lynching . American Experience, "Scottsboro: An American Tragedy" . lyrics to "Strange Fruit" . "Ain't I a Woman," by Sojourner Truth; "Thank You, M'am," by Langston Hughes Evaluation: quizzes, discussion, and research assignment (Harlem Renaissance) Reading: For each of the three sections outlined below, we will read in class and for homework. The Study Guide questions that follow will help prepare you for the quiz on each section. I may count their completion as extra credit (if concrete details from the text are used), or I may allow you to use the completed Study Guide questions on the quiz. We will also explore the background and controversy of the novel. SECTION ONE Chapters 1-11 (pages 1 -112) SECTION TWO Chapters 12-21 (pages 115-211) SECTION THREE Chapters 22-31 (pages 212-281) Background: To Kill a Mockingbird is set in a small town in rural Alabama in the early 1930s. Harper Lee, who was born in Monroeville, Alabama, would have been about the same age as Scout Finch at the time the story takes place. Many of the events that Lee experienced as a child were incorporated into the story that she wrote more than thirty years later. The novel is set during the Great Depression, at a time in which millions of Americans lost their jobs. Many people also lost their homes, their land, and their dignity. They lived in flimsy shacks and stood in bread lines to receive government handouts of food. Some "rode the rails" to look for work in other towns, but the situation was dismal everywhere. At the start of the Great Depression, about half of the African American population lived in the South. With few jobs available, blacks often found themselves edged out by whites, even for the poorest paying jobs. Racial tensions, which had existed since the end of the Civil War, increased. Mob actions by whites that led to the hanging of African Americans and of those who sympathized with them continued throughout the South. In Alabama, as in other southern states, segregation was a way of life in the 1930s. Schools, restaurants, churches, courtrooms, hospitals, and all other public places had separate facilities for African Americans. In some courts, African Americans were even required to swear on separate Bibles. The Ku Klux Klan, a southern terrorist group, preached white superiority and engaged in violence against African Americans. Section One: Chapters 1-11 1. Chapter 1 introduces us to the town of Maycomb, its appearance, its inhabitants, and the particular attitudes of many of its people. Find a sentence or a paragraph that illustrates each of the following attitudes, or ideas. Quote at least a portion of the sentence or paragraph and give the page number. a. pride in ancestry and tradition b. pride in conformity and distrust of those who are different c. awareness of difference in social classes 2. In relation to Boo Radley and his house, how do Scout, Jem, and Dill try to test their courage? What feelings do they have about Boo? 3. Both Calpurnia and Atticus scold Scout for her criticism of Walter Cunningham. What does this tell you about these two adults? Section One: Chapters 1-11 continued 4. These three characters are all from poor families, and yet act quite differently: Burris Ewell, Walter Cunningham, Chuck Little. Describe their differences below. appearance attitude one significant quote Burris Walter Chuck 5. Atticus tells Scout, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb in his skin and walk around in it" (30). What is Atticus trying to teach his daughter? 6.