to kill a mockingbird creative writing task

20 exciting and engaging lessons for To Kill a Mockingbird

by mindroar | Feb 14, 2022 | blog | 0 comments

Are you looking for lessons for To Kill a Mockingbird ?  To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic American novel that is included in many middle school and high school curriculums.

In this blog post, we’re going to take a look at lessons and activities for To Kill a Mockingbird. 

We’ve got you covered for pre-reading activities, while-reading activities, after-reading activities, and whole-unit bundles.

I vividly remember when I was taught To Kill a Mockingbird in Year 11.  The book looked old and tatty, the title was unappealing, and at the time I was obsessed with YA sci-fi.

A realistic novel set in America’s south was pretty far outside of both my interests and experience.

But boy was it a memorable book.  I forced myself to read through the first few chapters, and after that, I was hooked!

With my teacher hat on, I think if the novel was introduced to me in a more exciting way, I would have had way more enthusiasm for tackling the book.  

And as we know, pre-reading activities are a great way to familiarize students with the world of a book, but also to create excitement about what is to come.

To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activities

1. carousel discussion.

The first pre-reading activity for To Kill a Mockingbird is this carousel discussion activity by English Bulldog.

This carousel discussion gets students up and moving looking at statements designed to create strong opinions. 

Students read the statements, and in pairs come up with a statement of agreement or disagreement with an explanation.  

After that, you assign students a poster, and students must review the responses and discuss the trend in thinking. 

Finally, students debrief in a class discussion and share their thoughts.  

The activity includes a teacher lesson plan with common core objectives, preparation steps, class agenda, and assessment strategy. 

It also includes a PowerPoint with student-friendly objectives, student directions, and activity time limits.  

2. Agree or disagree activity

The second pre-reading lesson for To Kill a Mockingbird is this lesson by The Lit Guy. 

In the lesson, students view ten statements that they need to either agree or disagree with.  Students are expected to back up their opinion during the following class discussion.

The activity also includes teacher tips for running the lesson. 

3. Bias discussion

The third To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity is this bias discussion activity by Created for Learning. 

Similar to The Lit Guy’s To Kill a Mockingbird teaching materials, this activity asks students to move to an agree or disagree side of the room. 

Then they’re expected to explain their opinions.  

Included in the lesson are a printable handout, a slideshow discussion, and two versions of statements.  One version with a racially controversial question, and one without.

This is a great option for teachers who teach in politically conservative places, where discussion of racial prejudice is akin to . . . 

(insert gif of snake in can https://tenor.com/view/snake-can-pringles-granny-just-for-laugh-gags-gif-13979793 )

But really, you’re not laughing, you’re crying.  On the inside.

4. Teaching vocabulary

Other introductory class activities for To Kill a Mockingbird that are effective are teaching vocabulary words from the novel. 

This pre-reading vocabulary puzzle from Word Wise Language Arts Resources may be just what you’re after if that’s how you’d like to begin.

The crossword is designed to be used with a thesaurus and contains 50 challenging words from the novel. 

It could also serve as a great homework activity.

5. Internet research activities

Another To Kill a Mockingbird introduction activity is to have students research the novel.  This product comes with two internet research activities.

The first research activity is to investigate Harper Lee and other important elements from the novel, such as

• Jim Crow and the Scottsborough Boys
• the Monroe County Courthouse
• the movie version
• and mockingbirds themselves.

The second activity asks students to investigate Southern culture and symbolism more deeply.

This is a student-led way of getting students familiar with the background of the novel.

6. Extension pre-reading kit

The final To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity we have today is from Genre Marie. 

This extension pre-reading kit introduces students to important concepts such as

• the author Harper Lee
• the Jim Crow Laws
• southern women
• lynching and mobs
• Truman Capote
• and The Great Depression.

The activity is designed to be used as a station rotation activity with five stations.  Multiple versions of the stations have been included with varying degrees of higher-order thinking questions.  

The kit includes eight sources on the topics mentioned above and four higher-order thinking questions for each topic. Folder and a two-sided student answer sheet are also included. 

It also has a PowerPoint with times for the activities.

To Kill a Mockingbird while-reading activities

Another great way to keep students engaged is to use To Kill a Mockingbird activities while reading.  We have a bunch of resources and activities for teaching To Kill a Mockingbird .  

These resources include interactive notebooks, a body biography activity, chapter activities and quizzes, a psychiatric report, and a Crash Course Literature video worksheet bundle.

7. Interactive notebook

To start off the while-reading To Kill a Mockingbird activities, we have these interactive notebook activities by Tracee Orman.  

The bundle includes over 90 activities for before, during, and after reading. 

All of the activities are aligned to at least one Common Core State Standard for reading literature, language (vocabulary), speaking and listening, and writing.

There is also a teacher’s guide for how to do each of the activities.

This teacher-author also has a digital workbook version that includes the same activities but doesn’t require cutting out the different bits and pieces.  

8. Chapter activities for To Kill a Mockingbird

The second set of while-reading activities are these To Kill a Mockingbird chapter activities, also by Tracee Orman. 

The activity bundle includes activities and questions by chapter for To Kill a Mockingbird . Activities cover themes, the author, a review of Part One, and the end of the novel.

In total there are 37 different activities.  Some of the activities can also be adapted to other novels or short stories.

9. Psychiatric assessment of Boo

An interesting lesson for To Kill a Mockingbird is this lesson by Presto Plans.  Students complete the lesson after they have read the first six chapters of the novel.  

In the activity, students have to take on the role of a psychiatrist and use the information from the text to write up a ‘psychiatric report’ for Boo. They must use evidence from the novel to support their conclusions about Boo.

Students can also revisit the activity after reading the entire novel, as they often realize that many of their conclusions about Boo are based on town gossip.

The activity includes the students’ assignment worksheet, as well as an ‘answer key’ of quotes from chapters 1-6 that students could use to support their conclusions.

10. Body biographies

Another great set of activities to use are these body biography projects by Danielle Knight.  

Created as To Kill a Mockingbird group activities, these collaborative projects are posters that students work on together. 

There are 9 characters to choose from, and students need to use the skills of citing textual evidence, describing character traits, researching, and making inferences.  

Students (or you) can choose groups and the character they create a poster about.  Then students must answer reflection questions.

The project includes student handouts that explain each part of the project. Also included are teacher set-up directions, learning objectives/outcomes, background information, tips, and Common Core State Standards.  

11. Crash Course Literature video for To Kill a Mockingbird

Other great tools for teaching To Kill a Mockingbird are these worksheets (by me) to accompany the Crash Course Literature videos about the novel. (See here for the part one video and here for the part two video ).

I love using Crash Course videos in my lessons because they are fast-paced, interesting, rigorous, and funny. 

The presenter John Green (of The Fault in Their Stars fame) intersperses speaking with animation, quotes, and illustration to discuss To Kill a Mockingbird in an analytical way.

The videos (and worksheets) cover

• major plot points of the text
• the critical reception of the text
• biographical information about the author
• genre conventions the text uses
• themes such as what it means to be a woman. 

The To Kill a Mockingbird worksheets also cover

• the historical contexts of the text
• the protagonist’s viewpoint
• the characters Calpurnia and Atticus
• and the significance of the title.

These worksheets are a great way to help students by ‘guiding’ their notetaking, but also allowing them to take notes in their own way.  

Each worksheet has room for notes to be written or drawn, and students are encouraged to write a summary at the end.

There are also teacher notes for the Crash Course To Kill a Mockingbird videos included to help you identify content you may wish to cover in more detail with your class.

12. Chapter quizzes

Finally, the last while-reading activities for To Kill a Mockingbird are these chapter quizzes by Simply Novel.

These lessons for To Kill a Mockingbird chapter activities are quizzes including multiple-choice, short response, and true/false questions.  

The quizzes can either be printed or used as self-grading forms on Google Forms.  There is also an answer key supplied.

To Kill a Mockingbird after-reading activities

So, you’ve made it.  Wooh!  Your students have read To Kill a Mockingbird , and now you have to revise and assess their learning.

To help you out, we have a few after-reading activities for the novel , including

• a final test
• figurative language activities
• an essay writing To Kill a Mockingbird culminating activity
• a book vs movie sort
• a character analysis
• and chapter quizzes (which you could also do while reading, or use as a question bank for a final test).

13. Final test for To Kill a Mockingbird

The first after-reading activity we have is this final test from The Daring English Teacher. 

The final test includes questions about identifying characters and quotes, as well as multiple-choice, true or false, figurative language, and short response questions.   

14. Figurative language activity

Another lesson for To Kill a Mockingbird that would be fantastic after reading the novel is this figurative language activity by Creating for Learning. 

While it’s not a test, this activity is a great way to review figurative language in the context of the novel.

Students will need to analyze examples of figurative language from the novel. Then students decide if they are similes, metaphors, idioms, hyperbole, analogies, personification, puns, allusions, or symbols.  

In doing so, students will analyze idioms and compare their literal vs figurative meanings.  Students will also analyze quotes to decide whether they are similes or metaphors. 

Finally, students will analyze quotes, identify which figurative device is used, and explain its meaning.

This would be a great way to both review the novel and reinforce figurative language with your students.

15. To Kill a Mockingbird culminating activity – essay writing

A To Kill a Mockingbird culminating activity you might like to use is this essay writing task by Captivate Motivate Educate.

This culminating activity requires students to make connections among characters, main ideas, and concepts using a hexagonal thinking activity.  

After this, students write an essay explaining the main connections they have made.  

The activity includes a hexagonal template, detailed teacher and student directions, charts and templates, sample responses, sample essays, and a grading rubric.  

The hexagonal template that students use encourages students to make connections between the characters, motivations, events, conflicts, and themes in To Kill a Mockingbird .

16. Book vs movie sort

Another great after-reading lesson for To Kill a Mockingbird is this book vs movie sort activity from Clare’s Clapboard.

In the activity, students are given 20 cards with a statement.  However, the statements are true only for the book, only for the movie, or true for both.  

Students have to sort the cards into the correct category (true for the movie, true for the book, or true for both).  

This activity is great for those students who *may have not* read the whole book.  (Let’s be real, there’ll be a couple in every class!). 

And this activity will help those students differentiate the movie they *may have* watched from what actually happened in the book.

An answer key is provided.  

To Kill a Mockingbird whole-unit activities

Now, if you’ve made it this far, you might be after whole-unit bundles. 

Maybe you’ve run out of To Kill a Mockingbird teaching ideas after having it on your curriculum for years on end or maybe it’s your first time teaching it.

Perhaps you just don’t have the time.  (We all know that the planning and preparation time teachers are given is *not enough*).

With that in mind, here are four whole-unit bundles for Harper Lee’s classic novel.

These bundles filled with To Kill a Mockingbird activities and worksheets offer so much value because they give you back your time! 

17. To Kill a Mockingbird teaching unit by The Daring English Teacher

This bundle has in-unit differentiation and includes vocabulary, To Kill a Mockingbird writing activities and prompts, questions, quizzes, and much more.  

The bundle includes two historical context activities for To Kill a Mockingbird , with a choice between a group research project or a research paper with ESL support.

The vocabulary elements include 140 vocabulary words, six quizzes, and two activities for each quiz. They also include built-in differentiation for ESL students and struggling or younger readers.  

There are nine different Common Core State Standards-aligned writing assignments with two levels of differentiation, as well as reading comprehension quizzes.

Also included are review activities, character analysis graphic organizers, and a final test. There is also a choice of two Common Core State Standard-aligned essays with included outlines, graphic organizers, and ESL differentiation.

18. Whole unit bundle by Simply Novel

The second whole-unit bundle of lessons for To Kill a Mockingbird is this one by Simply Novel. 

The Google Classroom-friendly bundle includes a comprehensive study guide and covers many standards through reading and analysis of the novel and its themes.

The bundle includes informational texts about the history, social and political environment in which the story was written and set. 

They include an author study of Harper Lee, real-life connections to the novel, and discussion ideas and articles for approaching the “N-Word” in classic literature.

Informational texts also include topics such as:

• The Great Depression
• Plessy vs Ferguson and the Jim Crow Laws
• Thurgood Marshall’s “Equity Speech”
• the genre of realistic fiction
• the true story of Emmett Till
• the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s
• violence in the South
• Jim Crow Laws and legal segregation
• Hugo Black’s appointment to the Supreme Court in 1937
• African-American stereotypes in literature
• anticipation/reaction theme discussion
• Hey, Boo documentary analysis
• and The Central Park Five.

Also included are two vocabulary lists with and without definitions and a glossary of over 300 allusions and terms from the novel.

Similarly, it has a list of idioms/expressions from the novel and an article about dealing with grief and loss.

Students use literary analysis activities to . . .

Practice in-text analysis and close reading, focusing specifically on:

• flashback and plot
• dialect and slang
• characterization
• foreshadowing and prediction
• figurative language
• analyzing poetry
• informational text analysis
• analyzing rhetoric
• author’s style
• context clues
• connotation and word choice
• and theme in context.

The bundle also includes writing skills practice that helps students practice standards-based skills such as:

• writing vignettes
• writing with vivid language
• argument writing
• writing with objective styles
• mini-research project
• analyzing tone in writing
• informational text report
• shared writing project (blogging)
• and writing a literary analysis essay.

The bundle covers vocabulary standards skills including word analysis, context clues, word origins, word roots, and vocabulary in context.

It also covers punctuation and grammar topics such as semicolons and colons, hyphenation, independent and dependent clauses.

In the bundle, students practice using a thesaurus, differentiating between denotation and connotation, and try using context clues in complex writing.

Students also practice defining by contrast, identifying parallel structure, and interpreting figures of speech.

The bundle includes over 300 comprehension and analysis questions, reading quizzes for the whole novel, and vocabulary quizzes for the whole text.

There is a 35-question final test including multiple-choice and short-response questions, as well as a 50-question multiple-choice final test, and a sample pacing guide.

With an abundance of activities, the unit can be used both in-class and through digital platforms for distance learning.

19. To Kill a Mockingbird bundle by Stacey Lloyd

The To Kill a Mockingbird teaching unit is this one by Stacey Llyod.  This bundle includes five weeks of resources including lesson plans, chapter questions and answer keys, worksheets, graphic organizers, and more.

The bundle includes student workbooks with over 50 pages of activities, figurative language task cards, quotes posters, and revision task cards. 

It also comes with answer recording sheets and a full answer key.

20. To Kill a Mockingbird unit plan by Laura Randazzo

The final bundle is this one by Laura Randazzo.  It includes a day-by-day calendar with helpful details and nightly homework assignments and information for how to address the novel’s use of the n-word.

It also has a research organizer to help students research Harper Lee. You could do this to begin your study of To Kill a Mockingbird .

Or, you could begin teaching To Kill a Mockingbird with a dynamic lecture to introduce the important character, historical, and thematic elements of the novel. You could then follow it up with a quickwrite topic/discussion starter.

One-question quizzers encourage students to do the nightly reading assignments and questions for each chapter of the novel.

Close reading worksheets use sections of text from chapters 2, 9, 15, and 23.  Each chapter excerpt includes detailed examples of finished worksheets to show models of proper annotation and discussion starters.

The bundle also includes fun To Kill a Mockingbird activities such as a character cell phone activity, police report writing and sketch activity, a creative writing blackout poetry lesson, and a flyswatter review game.

Other activities include:

• a math/problem-solving lesson about a day in the life of the working poor
• a word worksheet vocabulary-building activity
• a non-fiction reading and writing activity connecting the case of the Scottsboro Boys to Tom Robinson
• a timeline review game/worksheet plotting 22 events from the text along a 1933-1935 timeline.

Assessment options included in the bundle are a 50-question end-of-unit exam and an essay topic sheet with five choices.

Want more English Language Arts resources and lessons?

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Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird

Lessons, Activities, Ideas, Tips, and More.

Ideas for Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird

Here are some ideas for you to use while teaching To Kill a Mockingbird .

I have included Unit Goals, Pre-Reading Activities, During Reading Activities, Reading Strategies, and After Reading Activities.

If you would rather have all your prep work done with a full unit plan for To Kill a Mockingbird with lesson plans, a unit calendar, printables, quizzes, PowerPoint presentations, and much more, please see my Ultimate To Kill a Mockingbird Unit Plan.

You can learn more here – http://englishunitplans.com/tokillamockingbird/

• Students will have increased awareness of the central issues in the novel: Maturity & Coming of Age, Racism, Social Hierarchies, Class & Gender Discrimination, Parenting, Education vs. Schooling, Hypocrisy, Rumours & Gossip, etc.
• Students will develop their ability to read and interpret literature.
• Students will internalize reading strategies.
• Students will make connections between issues in the novel and current events.
• Students will understand and be able to apply literary terms such as, narrative voice, symbol, episodic narration, characterization, theme, verbal irony and style.
• Students will write an essay that examines an aspect of the novel.

PRE-READING ACTIVITIES

• Eyes on the Prize: View the segment on the Montgomery Bus Boycott initiated by the actions of Rosa Parks, or the segment on the murder or Emmett Till.
• Related Readings: Bring in one or several articles on varying levels of discrimination and/or racism. These articles should spark a lively discussion. For variety, conduct the activity as a jigsaw, with each group getting a different article to read and summarize (verbally) for the class.
• Scrapbook: Students collect articles on current events related to the major issues in the novel (see the list under unit goals).
• Research project: Students can research current of historical events related to the novels major issues.
• Line Toss: Work in groups of 6. Each student has an important line from the novel. Within the group, a ball is tossed randomly. Each person who catches the ball must read his/her line before tossing the ball to someone else.

DURING READING

• First School Memory: Have students write a short response on their first clear memory of being in school. Students may choose to expand these into short narratives.
• Talk show on Scouts First Day of School: Assign students to various character roles (Miss Caroline, Jem, Walter Cunningham, Little Chuck Little, Burris Ewell & Atticus). Have “Oprah” question each character about that first day of school.
• Quick Write: Select a key line from that day ‘s reading and use it as a prompt (or as the first line) of a quick write. As students write, give them other words from the chapter to incorporate in their writing.
• Music: Select theme songs for important character. How does each song suit the character?
• Is Atticus a Good Father? Several Options (all fit for chapters 10-11)
• Value line: Have students stand on a value line to rate Atticus as a father. Ask various students to give their reasons for the ranking.
• Qualities of a Good parent: Brainstorm qualities of a good parent and discuss how Atticus measures up to them. This can end as a discussion or it can lead into· an argumentative paragraph.
• Talk show: Assign students to various character roles (Mrs. Dubose, Aunt Alexandra, Miss Stephanie, Miss Maudie, Calpurnia, Uncle , & Atticus). In a talk show format, have each character comment on Atticus’s skill as a parent.
• Mayella Ewell: Victim or Criminal?
•  Debate: With 15-20 minutes to prepare, students should be able to generate enough for a lively debate.
• Argumentative Paragraph: This paragraph can be a follow-up to the debate, or it can stand on its own.
• Maycomb Social Hierarcy: Have students draw a pyramid and place on it all of the social groups in Maycomb. Provide a rationale for each placement (and perhaps a quotation).
• Concept Attainment: Prejudice vs. Discrimination. Use the concept attainment method to help students distinguish between the two of these.
• Improv: Have groups of students improvise the dinner conversation at the Ewell’s home during the court recess.
• Tableau: Have groups of students prepare tableaux of important scenes for review.
• Character Walk (as Boo Radley): This is a powerful exercise for helping students understand the debilitating impact of rumours and gossip. Students form two rows facing each other. These students represent the people of Maycomb and will repeat the rumours and gossip about Boo. Other students play the part of Boo Radley and walk between the lines of students, listening to the gossip. All students should have a turn to play both Boo Radley and the general public of Maycomb.
• Examining Style: Have students read and listen to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Ask them to pick out anything that makes this a memorable speech. Introduce the concept of style as it applies to writing. Look at page 279 in To Kill a Mockingbird and talk about the style of writing used to express Scout’s thoughts and memories.

SOME SUGGESTED READING STRATEGIES

• Summarizing: Students summarize events as they read. Initially this might be every few pages. It can also mean a verbal summary with a partner at the end of a chapter.
• Prediction: (a) Object prediction (b) Sort and Predict with vocabulary
• Guided Reading: Stop several times during oral reading to have students write a 2 sentence summary and to compose 1 question. Students can internalize this strategy and use it while reading silently.
• Key Words: List key words for the upcoming passage, define them with students and ask students to look for the words in that day’s reading.

AFTER READING

• E-zine: Students work in groups to create an electronic magazine on an issue linked to the novel. To complete this project students will demonstrate computer use skills, research skills and literacy skills.
• Essay on the novel.

ideas for teaching to kill a mockingbird to kill a mockingbird activities to kill a mockingbird lessons

7 thoughts on “Ideas for Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird”

Thanks so much for the excellent tips on teaching To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s nice to have a selection of approaches to engage the students and I look forward to using many of them.

Wow! All of these wonderful ideas, and for FREE!

Thank you 🙂

Thanks for all of these ideas. I appreciate how you have broken it down into the three stages of exploring a text: before, during, and after. I am just starting To Kill a Mockingbird with my grade 10 class, and these ideas will be a big help. I am especially keen to try the e-zine project. Do you have a marking rubric for it? Thanks.

This is a great starting point for planning a To Kill a Mockingbird unit. I think it’s great that you are sharing this with other teachers. Thanks.

I love the idea to have the students make a talk show about Scout’s first day of school. I Can’t wait to see what my grade tens come up with. The gossip lines idea also sounds interesting. Thanks.

Thanks for all the great ideas. I love To Kill a Mockingbird, but I haven’t taught it before and I am a little nervous to tackle this classic. Your blog has given me a great start on planning my unit. Thanks again.

I am at the end of The Novel block teaching To Kill A Mockingbird to my 9th grade class. I have come up with several ideas that were effective and fun. I’d like to share a couple of them with you. The first one is to have the students write a scene that is not in the book using Harper Lee’s style as a way to further develop the student’s understanding of the characters. For example, my class wrote the scene in which Jem goes to retrieve his pants from the fence through his eyes. Another scene could also be Walter Cunningham’s inner dialogue while Scout is talking to him in front of the jail. The second activity we did was to study some of the photographs from the Farm Security Administration and answer basic who, what, when, where, and why questions as a way to deepen our understanding of the time period in which the story takes place.

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To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter 6: Jem’s Diary Activity

In this engaging assignment, students will explore Chapter 6 of To Kill a Mockingbird through a creative diary-writing activity from Jem Finch’s perspective. The task focuses on developing a distinctive voice for Jem and delving into his experiences during this critical chapter. Students are expected to accurately identify key events, use creative writing to fill narrative gaps, and critically analyze Jem’s actions and decisions. This activity offers a unique opportunity to deepen understanding of the novel and enhance creative and analytical skills.

Learning Goals

• I will be able to accurately identify and understand the key events that occur in Chapter 6 of To Kill a Mockingbird.
• I will be able to use creative writing techniques to imaginatively fill in the gaps of the story.
• I will be able to critically think about and interpret Jem’s actions and decisions in the chapter.
• Introduce the writing activity to students.
• Read Chapter 6 of To Kill a Mockingbird.
• Students are to complete the writing activity.

Student Instructions

Write a diary entry from Scout’s perspective. It should be at least 3 paragraphs long and include the following:

A unique voice:  Jem’s thoughts and expressions should be noticeably different from Scout’s narrative style. Consider his older age and deeper insights.

Cover Key Chapter Events: 

Start of Chapter: Begin by reflecting on the activities they were engaged in at the chapter’s start.

Radley Yard Experience: Elaborate on Jem’s adventure in the Radley yard. Focus on his emotional and psychological state during this daring act.

Retrieving Pants: Creatively imagine Jem’s experience when he returns for his pants. This detail is not explicitly covered in the book, so use your imagination to fill in the gaps.

Jem’s Thoughts in Bed: Conclude with Jem lying in bed, trembling. Ponder over what these feelings mean to him – is it fear, a realization, or a mix of emotions?

Remember, a diary entry is written in the first person. It should be personal and introspective (inward-looking). 

Chapter Details (5 Marks)

• Coverage of Key Events /2
• Accuracy and Relevance /2
• Filling in the blanks based on context  /1

Voice (5 Marks)

• Distinctiveness from Scout’s Narrative   /2
• Consistent throughout the piece  /2
• Expression and Emotional Insight   /1

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Themes and Analysis

To kill a mockingbird, by harper lee.

The theme of race and injustice is a powerful element of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' by Harper Lee that makes the novel a great sensation.

Article written by Onyekachi Osuji

B.A. in Public Administration and certified in Creative Writing (Fiction and Non-Fiction)

Race is the most prominent theme in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. However, Lee also explores other important themes like innocence, reputation, and parenting in the novel. The novel is written in the first-person narrative, but Lee’s genius shows in how she balances the limited perspective of the first-person narrator and the need to give readers a complete picture of events.

Race is a major theme in To Kill A Mockingbird . We see racial inequality and injustice in the Depression-Era South throughout the novel . The most striking evidence of racial injustice is the unfair accusation of rape on Tom Robinson—Mayella Ewell and her father Bob contrive to accuse Tom of rape because they cannot stand it being known by the public that Mayella who is white tried to seduce a black man. Then we see the racism of the people in the mob that attempt to lynch Tom Robinson before his trial and ultimately, in the jury who pronounce him guilty despite strong evidence and a brilliant argument by Atticus Finch in his defense.

Aside the prominent case of racism against Tom Robinson, we also see other instances of racism in the social structure of the South at the time. The blacks live in separate neighborhoods from the whites, most of the black people are illiterate because there are no schools for them, and the career options available to the blacks are limited to domestic servants, field hands, and garbage collectors.

Another subtle indication of racism is Aunt Alexandra’s outrage that Scout lacks a female influence in her life despite knowing that Calpurnia is a female and has been in Scout’s life since birth. Calpurnia’s feminine influence on Scout counts as nothing to Aunt Alexandra because Calpurnia is a black woman and Scout a white girl.

To Kill A Mockingbird addresses the interplay between what the public perceives a person to be and what a person truly is. In the novel, we see that sometimes, people are truly what their reputation says they are, while some other people are different from what they are reputed to be.

Atticus Finch is a man whose reputation is consistent with his true personality. He is known across town as a ”n****r lover” which he truly is, and every other aspect of his character is public knowledge. In Maudie Atkinson’s words: ”Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets.”

For some other characters, their reputation is a misrepresentation of their personality. For instance, Boo Radley’s reputation as a monster is wrong because, in truth, he is a kind young man who is just shy and keeps to himself. Another instance is Mr Dolphus Raymond’s reputation as a drunkard, which is false as he is a sober man who is a happy and loving father and husband to his colored wife and children. He keeps up that reputation for giving society something to cling to as a reason to pity him while they condemn his decisions.

Childlike Innocence

Childlike innocence is a powerful theme in To Kill A Mockingbird. Childlike innocence exposes the folly of racial and class prejudice exhibited by adults. And the irony is that the adults are the ones who should know better but end up being the ignorant ones. Scout as a child does not see any reason to discriminate against people because of gender and class and she becomes saddened by the realization that the society in which she lives has such prejudicial sentiments.

We also see how the evil ways of adults can threaten and corrupt childlike innocence. For instance, Aunt Alexandra’s grandson Francis, learns racial slurs against blacks from his conventionally southern white grandparents.

At the end of the day, Scout’s experiences of hatred and racial prejudice in her hometown make her wise beyond her age but she still maintains her childhood innocence of regarding people as equal and protecting the helpless.

Gender is a social construct that comes with expectations and limitations in the South. There are expectations of how a girl ought to dress, and act, and standards of propriety for ladies.

Scout, a girl, dresses, and plays like a boy. Early in their childhood, her being a girl makes no difference to her brother Jem and friend Dill, but as they grow up, they begin to exclude her from their play and from their secrets for the reason that she is a girl.

Aunt Alexandra always disapproves of Scout for being a tomboy and insists that Scout ought to wear dresses and play with dolls with is a conventionally feminine way for a girl to behave.

Scout meets the white ladies of the County when her aunt Alexandra hosts them in their home and the hypocrisy of their speech and manners makes her feel more like an outsider to people of her own gender.

Injustice and Unfairness

In To Kill A Mockingbird, we see that there is injustice and unfairness in the world and that even the law sometimes cannot protect the innocent from injustice.

Tom Robinson is pronounced guilty and killed violently despite being an innocent good man. It shows that good does not always prevail over evil and that the cruelty of the world sometimes succeeds in destroying good harmless people.

Analysis of Key Moments

• Two siblings, Scout and Jem live in a nice neighborhood with their widowed father Atticus Finch. The siblings only play with each other as there are no other children in the neighborhood to play with until a boy named Dill visits one summer and they become friends.
• There is a house in the neighborhood that is always shut and never receives visitors. The occupants of the house are the Radleys and their son Boo Radley is never seen outside which makes children formulate many legends about him being a monster.
• The children devise various plots to see Boo Radley but never succeed.
• Atticus Finch’s sister Alexandra comes to live with them because she does not approve of Atticus’s unconventional parenting style
• Atticus is assigned to defend a crippled black man called Tom Robinson who is accused of raping a white young lady called Mayella Ewell.
• Atticus goes to guard the accused Tom Robinson in his cell following rumors that a mob is trying to lynch him.
• Scout, Jem, and Dill surreptitiously follow Atticus to the cell.
• When the lynching mob arrives, Scout unwittingly talks them out of their intention to lynch Tom Robinson.
• Tom Robinson goes to trial but is pronounced guilty by the jury despite Atticus Finch’s strong argument and defense.
•  Atticus promises Tom that they will appeal the decision of the court. But before that, Tom is killed while trying to escape from prison.
•  Bob Ewell, the father of the allegedly raped Mayella Ewell, who felt Atticus Finch humiliated him in court, attacks Jem and Scout on their way back from a Halloween party. Boo Radley rescues them from the attack and the children’s perception of him changes from phantom to hero.

Style, Tone, and Figurative Language

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is told in the first-person narration. The story is a flashback to childhood days of the past and a narration of those events in retrospect . The current age of the narrator is not specified but we know that the narrator is older and has gained more wisdom with age as she narrates the events.

Even though there are some complex words in the novel, the diction is generally simple. The writing style is not flowery or exaggeratedly artistic, the writing is direct and conversational.

The tone of the narrator is nostalgic and playful at the beginning but becomes progressively melancholic as she narrates grave events.

Sarcasm and euphemism are also prominent figures of speech used in the novel. For instance, on page 79, Harper Lee simplifies Aunt Alexandra’s sexual copulation with her husband, the conception and birth of her child as: ” Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son called Henry.” Read more quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird here .

Foreshadowing is a notable literary device deployed in the story. For instance, the climactic event of Scout and Jem’s attack is foreshadowed by the statement ”And thus began our longest walk together.”

Analysis of Symbols

The mockingbird.

The Mockingbird is a symbol of goodness and innocence that should be allowed to exist and thrive but is unfortunately preyed upon and destroyed by the wickedness and injustice in the world. The character Tom Robinson is a mockingbird—an innocent man who works hard, takes care of his family, does not make any trouble, and renders assistance to those in need of it without asking for anything in return. But unfortunately, the unjust society in which he lives destroys him with a false rape allegation and a violent death.

Boo Radley is another mockingbird whose personality is subdued by his family’s cruelty.

The Mockingbird gives the novel its title as Atticus teaches his children that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.

The Rabid Dog

This symbolizes the unpleasant reality which looms in the South but that the average people would rather not confront. The rabid dog poses a danger to all but none of the people in the neighborhood take any decisive action to confront it, they rather retire indoors and shut their doors. Even the sheriff stalls and manages to place the task of killing the dog on Atticus Finch.

The rabid dog is just as unpleasant and as dangerous as racism but even the good people in Maycomb County are afraid to confront it and the fight is and so the responsibility is always left on Atticus Finch’s shoulders.

The Refuse Dump

The refuse dump is the abode of the Ewells. Living in the refuse dump symbolizes that the Ewells are trash both literally and figuratively.

What is the main message in To Kill A Mockingbird ?

The main message in To Kill A Mockingbird is that it is wrong to prey on the innocent and that racial prejudice is cruel and wrong.

Who is the narrator in To Kill A Mockingbird ?

The narrator of To Kill A Mockingbird is a girl called Scout. Her full name is Jean Louise Finch and narrates the story as she recalls the events that took place during her childhood. She is a white girl from a relatively wealthy home. She is playful, stubborn, and tomboyish and begins to realize that she lives in a racially prejudiced society as she comes of age.

Why is it a sin to kill a mockingbird?

The answer to this is given by Miss Maudie Atkinson when she explains to Scout that the only thing mockingbirds do is make music for others to enjoy, they do not destroy people’s crops, do not nest in corncribs, and so it is a kill to kill such a creature that does nothing but bring pleasantness to others.

Is To Kill A Mockingbird based on a true story?

No, To Kill A Mockingbird is not based on a true story, it is fictional.

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About Onyekachi Osuji

Onyekachi was already an adult when she discovered the rich artistry in the storytelling craft of her people—the native Igbo tribe of Africa. This connection to her roots has inspired her to become a Literature enthusiast with an interest in the stories of Igbo origin and books from writers of diverse backgrounds. She writes stories of her own and works on Literary Analysis in various genres.

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee : A range of tasks

Subject: Poetry

Age range: 14-16

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Last updated

16 August 2021

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To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is the rare American novel that can be discovered with excitement in adolescence and reread into adulthood without fear of disappointment. Few novels so appealingly evoke the daily world of childhood in a way that seems convincing whether you are 16 or 66.

"Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they're quite different from people who must write." —from a 1964 interview

More Details about the Book

Introduction to the book.

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird begins at the end. The novel opens with the adult Jean Louise "Scout" Finch writing, "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." By the time Jem finally gets around to breaking his arm more than 250 pages later most readers will have forgotten they were ever warned. This echoes the way the whole book unfolds—in no special hurry, with lifelike indirection. Nothing happens all by itself. The book's two plots inch forward along parallel tracks, only converging near the end.

The first plot revolves around Arthur "Boo" Radley, who lives in a shuttered house down the street from the Finches and is rumored to be some kind of monster. Scout, Jem, and their next-door neighbor Dill engage in pranks, trying to make Boo show himself. Unexpectedly, Boo reciprocates their interest with a series of small gifts, until he ultimately steps off his porch and into their lives when they need him most.

The second story concerns Scout and Jem's father, the attorney Atticus Finch. The local judge appoints him to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of raping a white woman. Atticus suspects he will lose the case, but he faces up to the challenge just the same, at one point heroically stepping between his client and a lynch mob.

Along with its twin plot lines, To Kill a Mockingbird has two broad themes: tolerance and justice. Lee treats the first through the children's fear of their mysterious neighbor. She illustrates the second with Atticus's courage in defending Robinson to the best of his ability, despite the racial prejudices of their small Southern town.

Tying the stories together is a simple but profound piece of advice Atticus gives Scout: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." By the end of the novel, Scout has done exactly that—guessed at the pain not only beneath Tom Robinson's skin, but also under that of her neighbor.

How the Novel Came to Be Written

Any claims for To Kill a Mockingbird as a book that changed history could not have seemed more far-fetched one winter night in 1958, as Nelle Harper Lee huddled in her outer-borough New York apartment trying to finesse her unruly, episodic manuscript into some semblance of a cohesive novel. All but drowning in multiple drafts of the same material, Lee suddenly threw open a window and scattered five years of work onto the dirty snow below.

Did Lee really intend to destroy To Kill a Mockingbird ? We'll never know. Fortunately, in the next moment, she called her editor. J.B. Lippincott's formidable Tay Hohoff promptly sent her outside to gather all the pages back–thus rescuing To Kill a Mockingbird from the slush.

The novel had its origins in Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama—the small, Southern town that the fictional Maycomb is based upon. Her father's unsuccessful defense of a black man and his son accused of murder, in addition to the Scottsboro Boys trials and another notorious interracial rape case, helped to shape Lee's budding social conscience and sense of a dramatic story.

Along with his legal practice, Lee's father published and edited the town newspaper. His regard for the written word impacted Lee's sensibility as surely as his respect for the law. Lee would name her idealized vision of her father after Titus Pomponius Atticus, a friend of the Roman orator Cicero renowned as, according to Lee, "a wise, learned and humane man." For a long time, Lee called her work in progress Atticus. Once she fastened on To Kill a Mockingbird she did not look back.

An early version of the novel, titled Go Set a Watchman , featured Scout as an adult returning to Maycomb. Lee’s editor, Tay Hohoff, asked her to rewrite the story from a child’s perspective, which she did. Until recently, the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman was believed lost. It was discovered decades later and published by HarperCollins in July 2015.

Lippincott finally published To Kill a Mockingbird on July 11, 1960, by which time an unprecedented four national mail-order book clubs had already selected it for their readers. The first line of the Washington Post 's review echoed many similar notices that praised the novel for its moral impact: "A hundred pounds of sermons on tolerance, or an equal measure of invective deploring the lack of it, will weigh far less in the scale of enlightenment than a mere 18 ounces of new fiction bearing the title To Kill a Mockingbird ."

Eighty weeks later, the novel still perched on the hardcover bestseller list. During that time, it had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the hearts of American readers. One can't help wondering how literary history might have been different had Harper Lee thrown her manuscript out the window on a slightly windier night.

About Harper Lee

Harper Lee (1926-2016)

If Nelle Harper Lee ever wanted proof that fame has its drawbacks, she didn't have to look farther than her childhood neighbor, Truman Capote. After her enormously successful first novel, she lived a life as private as Capote's was public.

Nelle—her first name was her grandmother's spelled backward—was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Her mother, Frances Cunningham Finch Lee, was a homemaker. Her father, Amasa Coleman Lee, practiced law. Before A.C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged.

As a child, Harper Lee was an unruly tomboy. She fought on the playground. She talked back to teachers. She was bored with school and resisted any sort of conformity. The character of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird would have liked her. In high school Lee was fortunate to have a gifted English teacher, Gladys Watson Burkett, who introduced her to challenging literature and the rigors of writing well. Lee loved 19th-century British authors best, and once said that her ambition was to become "the Jane Austen of south Alabama."

Unable to fit in with the sorority she joined at the University of Alabama, she found a second home on the campus newspaper. Eventually she became editor-in-chief of the Rammer Jammer , a quarterly humor magazine on campus. She entered the law school, but she "loathed" it. Despite her father's hopes that she would become a local attorney like her sister Alice, Lee went to New York to pursue her writing.

She spent eight years working odd jobs before she finally showed a manuscript to Tay Hohoff, an editor at J.B. Lippincott. At this point, it still resembled a string of stories more than the novel that Lee had intended. Under Hohoff's guidance, the perspective was changed to Scout as a child, and two and a half years of rewriting followed. When the novel was finally ready for publication, the author opted for the name "Harper Lee" on the cover, because she didn't want to be misidentified as "Nellie."

To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 to highly favorable reviews and quickly climbed the bestseller lists, where it remained for 88 weeks. In 1961, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize.

Lee later researched a book, similar to Capote's In Cold Blood (1966), about a part-time minister in Alexander City, Alabama, accused of killing five people for their insurance money and later himself murdered by a victim's relative. However, she dropped the project in the 1990s. It wasn't until February of 2015 that news of a second novel surfaced, when Lee's publisher announced a newly discovered manuscript for Go Set a Watchman , the novel Lee wrote before To Kill a Mockingbird .

In the meantime, To Kill a Mockingbird has sold more than 30 million copies in forty languages. In 2011, President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts. According to biographer Charles J. Shields, Lee was unprepared for the amount of personal attention associated with writing a bestseller. She led a quiet and guardedly private life. As Sheriff Tate says of Boo Radley, "draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight—to me, that's a sin." So it would be with Harper Lee.

The Friendship of Harper Lee and Truman Capote

Nelle Harper Lee and Truman Capote became friends in the early 1930s as kindergarteners in Monroeville, Alabama. They lived next door to each other: Capote with aunts and uncles, Lee with her parents and three siblings. From the start they loved reading and recognized in each other "an apartness," as Capote later expressed it. When Lee's father gave them an old Underwood typewriter, they began writing original stories. Although Capote moved to New York City in the third grade to join his mother and stepfather, he returned to Monroeville most summers, eventually providing the inspiration for Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird .

In 1948 Capote published his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms . Around that time, Lee quit law school and joined Capote in New York to work at becoming a writer, too. Years of menial jobs followed until To Kill a Mockingbird was ready for publication. Capote read the manuscript and made editorial suggestions. She, in her turn, accompanied him to Kansas to help research In Cold Blood .

After To Kill a Mockingbird was published, Capote resented Lee's success. He could have tried harder to dispel baseless rumors that the novel was as much his work as hers. Their friendship continued during the 1960s and '70s, but Capote's drug and alcohol abuse strained the relationship. Later he would stop publishing and sink into self-parody, sponging off high society and making endless rounds of the talk-show circuit. When Capote died in 1984, Lee confided to friends that she hadn't heard from him in years.

Discussion Questions

• Why do you think Harper Lee chose as her novel's epigraph this quote from Charles Lamb: "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once"?
• Why does the adult Scout begin her narrative with Jem's broken arm and a brief family history?
• How does Boo Radley 's past history of violence foreshadow his method of protecting Jem and Scout? Does this aggression make him more, or less, of a sympathetic character?
• How does the town of Maycomb function as a character with its own personality, rather than merely as a backdrop for the novel's events?
• Atticus teaches Scout that compromise is not bending the law, but "an agreement reached by mutual consent." Does Scout apply or reject this definition of compromise? What are examples of her obedience to and defiance of this principle?
• The novel takes place during the Great Depression. How do class divisions and family quarrels highlight racial tensions in Maycomb?
• Atticus believes that to understand life from someone else's perspective, we must "walk in his or her shoes." From what other perspectives does Scout see her fellow townspeople?
• How does Atticus quietly protest Jim Crow laws even before Tom Robinson's trial?
• What does Jem learn when Atticus forces him to read to Mrs. Dubose as a punishment? Why does the lawyer regard this woman as the "bravest person" he ever knew?
• Since their mother is dead, several women—Calpurnia, Miss Maudie, and Aunt Alexandra—function as mother figures to Scout and Jem. Discuss the ways these three women influence Scout's growing understanding of what it means to be a Southern "lady."
• Why does Atticus Finch risk his reputation, his friendships, and his career to take Tom Robinson's case? Do you think he risks too much by putting his children in harm's way?
• What elements of this novel did you find funny, memorable, or inspiring? Are there any characters whose beliefs or actions impressed or surprised you? Did any events lead you to revisit childhood memories or see them in a new light?
• Adult readers may focus so much on the novel's politics that they may neglect the coming-of-age story. What does Scout learn, and how does she change in the course of her narrative?

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10 To Kill a Mockingbird Pre-reading Activities

Here are 10 To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activities to p repare students for historical context, literary elements, and key themes. To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activities orient students’ imaginations. For many, a rural town in 1930’s Alabama is an alien world.  Furthermore, students benefit from preparation with key elements like symbolism, point of view, and theme.

1) Build on prior knowledge (Jim Crow and segregation).

An African-American youth at a segregated drinking fountain in Halifax, North Carolina, in 1938

Discover what students know about segregation, the Jim Crow era, and the civil rights Movement.  Students build upon this knowledge by drawing main ideas and details from a video about Jim Crow.

Title: Who was Jim Crow?

Common Core Standard: Reading Informational Texts 2 (objective summary)

Into:  Ask students to brainstorm what they know about segregation and the Jim Crow era for a class chart.  They should include everything from specific facts to general impressions.  Encourage them to include information about how the Jim Crow era came to be and how it was opposed.

Students may need some prodding to realize how much they really know.  Offer reminders as necessary.

Through:  Explain that they will be watching a video from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.  They should take notes as they watch so that they can write an objective summary.  An objective summary should be written in the third person point of view and not contain the author’s thoughts or opinions.

Student notes on “The New Jim Crow Museum”:

• Supporting ideas:
• Key details:

(WARNING: Some especially upsetting are shown in minutes 7:25 – 8:55.)

Advisory: Prepare your students to engage with this information with maturity and sensitivity.  Remind them that these “jokes” dehumanized African Americans and encouraged persecution and murder.  

Related post: “Should I teach To Kill a Mockingbird? “

Asks students to combine their viewing notes by identifying the main idea, supporting ideas, and key details as a class.  If time allows, add to the brainstorm chart.

Beyond:  Summarize Dr. Pilgrim’s analysis on the use of stereotypes.  How were they used to propagate and perpetuate persecution and segregation?  Why were people so enamored with these hateful representations?

Use your imagination and today’s study to guess what To Kill a Mockingbird might be about.  Think about the setting that we have identified.  Story starter: Everything really goes out of control when…

2) Talk about growing up and changing points of view.

This To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity starts students thinking about the theme topic of growing up.  Students write a brief personal essay on an event that changed their point of view.

Title: An Event that Changed My Point of View

Common Core Standard: Writing 2.B (developing a topic in informational writing)

Into: Quick-write :  What does it mean to be “grown up?” How do you know when you are an adult? What are different points of view on the meaning of adulthood? Think about legal, cultural (rites of passage), and personal points of view.

Through:  Explain that one theme of the upcoming novel focuses on growing up.  The kids in the story go through experiences that change their points of view.  Tell the students that they will be writing a short personal essay on an event from their own life that changed their point of view.

• Brainstorm events that made you think.
• Choose one to explore in detail.
• List important details: facts, definitions, quotes, or examples that help explain your change in point of view.
• Write your personal essay illustrating your change.

If time allows, allow students to share their personal essay for participation points.

Beyond:  Make a prediction about the kids in the story.  How do you think their points of view might change during the course of the novel?

3) Review symbolism.

Prepare students to think about symbols before they start reading.  This is especially true if your culminating task focuses on how Lee uses symbols.  This task asks student groups to present on the meanings found in visual and literary symbols.

Title: Visual Symbols and Literary Symbols

Common Core Standard: Reading literature 2 (theme development)

Into: Use a slideshow to display popular visual symbols (the Great Seal of the United States, the peace sign, the bat symbol, the Nike swoosh, etc.)  Have the students yell out what the symbol represents.  Encourage them to express abstract ideas, feelings, and connotations. For example, if they say that the swoosh symbolizes Nike, urge them on until someone says speed or agility.

Explain that visual symbols can represent abstract thoughts or powerful feelings but that literary symbols can be even more complex.  Literary symbols can have multiple, complex, or even contradictory meanings.

Through:  Have the students work in groups to create posters.  Each group must present one visual symbol and one literary symbol.  The literary symbol can be from a book, poem, song, short story, comic book, film, or even TV show.  They might analyze the mockingjay in The Hunger Games , the apple in Snow White , onions in Shrek , Edgar Allen Poes’ raven, and so on.

They must write a brief analysis of both symbols and present to the class.  Remind them to think about multiple meanings, connotations, and even contradictory meanings. (The bat in Batman represents the fear Bruce Wayne wants to instill but also (and secretly) his own fear).

Beyond:   Create a plan for a short story that includes a symbol to help develop the theme.  Briefly outline the characters, setting, plot, and theme.  Conceive and explain a literary symbol that conveys a message about life.

4) Embrace the controversy.

This To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity gets students thinking about controversial literature.  Students hold a debate on whether or not any text containing the n-word should be studied in the classroom.

Title: Controversy in the Classroom

Common Core Standard: Writing 1 (writing argument)

Into: Quick-write: What makes a book a masterpiece? What types of books should be taught in schools? Who should decide?  What types of books should be excluded from the classroom?

Students share their ideas for participation points.

Explain that To Kill a Mockingbird contains the n-word and characters who espouse hateful, racist stereotyping.  Even though the book was written to argue against racism, many feel that the book may be a bad influence on some and emotionally harmful to others.

Through:  Host a debate on whether or not any book containing the n-word should ever be taught in schools.  Have the students move to the PRO side of the room and the CON side of the room so that they can form small groups.  You may end up with uneven groups, but it does not really matter.

Proposed: No book containing the n-word should be taught in the classroom.

Each group needs to compose an argument including:

• Introduction (main idea and summary)
• Reasons and evidence
• Concluding statement
• Anticipating counter arguments and offering rebuttal.

Have the groups share their their arguments.  After all groups have offered their arguments, give all groups as chance for rebuttal (counterarguments).

Beyond:  Did the debate make you question your point of view or affirm your position?  Explain your answer. Can you appreciate both positions?

5) Explore the concept of hypocrisy with original skits.

This To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity gets students thinking about hypocrisy.  Student groups create brief skits to demonstrate a hypocrisy that they perceive.  This task prepares students to watch for hypocrisy in Maycomb (the teacher arguing against intolerance in Germany, the trial, the missionary society, the honoring of Egyptian civilization, etc.)

Title: Hypocrites!

Common Core Standard: Speaking and Listening 1 (collaborate to express ideas)  

Into: Quick-write: Hypocrisy is when one claims to have moral standards that they do no actually follow (e.g. a teacher who does not allow students to have beverages in class but is always having a cup of coffee).  Write about a hypocrisy that you see in life.  Why is it hypocritical?

Students share-out for participation points.

Through:  Explain that students will work in cooperative groups to create a brief demonstration of a hypocrisy for the class. Perhaps a student gets in trouble for drinking a sports drink in class and argues that the punishment is unjust since the teacher is always drinking coffee.

Tell the students that they do not need to write a script so long as they are clear about the point of views, motivations, and actions in the skit. If the hypocrisy in the skit is not obvious, students may want to preface their skit with an explanation.

Students perform.  If time allows, give audience members a chance to discuss after each skit.

Explain that To Kill a Mockingbird uses examples of hypocrisy to help develop the themes (messages about life).

Beyond:   Why is there so much hypocrisy in our lives?  Why do people act in ways that are contradictory to their stated beliefs?  What kind of hypocrisies might occur in To Kill a Mockingbird ?

Related Post: To Kill a Mockingbird Anticipation Guide / Introduction Activity

Get students thinking about context and key themes through lively discussion.  Statements address understanding others, growing up, prejudice, symbolism, and more. The PDF handout is ready to use.

6) Profile the forms of courage.

Lee wants the reader to think about the meaning and forms of courage.  This task encourages students to develop a more nuanced understanding by creating a poster on one form of courage.

Title: One Form of Courage

Common Core Standard: Speaking and Listening 1.D (considering different points of view), Speaking and Listening 5 (visual displays)

Into: Quick-write :  What is your definition of courage? Are there different types of courage? Use examples to support your answer.

Create a class chart of the different forms of courage (courage to go against the crowd, courage to risk your life to help others, courage to try new things, etc.)

Through:  Students are to create a poster for the classroom on one type of courage. (You may want to organize selection so that you end up with a variety of topics.) The poster could include the following:

• Title (type of courage)
• Case study (example of this courage from history or real life)
• Individual (a person who demonstrates this form of courage)
• Insightful quote
• Application (how others might show this type of courage in their lives)

Use a wall of the classroom to create a gallery of courage and display the student work.  If time allows, conduct a gallery walk and ask students to reflect on the examples.

Beyond:  Respond to this quote from To Kill a Mockingbird :

“’I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.’”

Do you agree? Make a guess about the what this character might be talking about.

Reflect on the gallery walk.  Which examples stood out to you and why?  Did you refine your own definition of courage? Explain.

7) Make connections to The Scottsboro Affair.

Students compare articles about The Scottsboro Affair in order to contextualize the novel and consider point of view and purpose in nonfiction texts.

Title: The Scottsboro Affair 

Common Core Standard: Reading Informational Texts 6 (point of view and purpose)

Into:  Quick-write: What are some of the problems with our justice system?  In what ways can the system fail? Think about the influences of prejudice and human error.

Introduce the Scottsboro Affair:   “The Scottsboro Boys” (video, 8 minutes) Professor Carol Anderson gives an overview of the case.

Through:  Students will analyze and compare texts on the same topic to think about point of view, purpose, and bias.

There are many articles to consider, but here is an example of a biased article from an Alabama newspaper at the time of the trials:

Outbound link: More information on Scottsboro Affair articles

Outbound link: “The Scottsboro Affair” (article, 6 pages) from Facing History and Ourselves.

Have students analyze two or more articles in terms of…

• Point of view
• Purpose and audience
• Rhetoric and bias

Beyond:  As consumers of information, why is it important that we be mindful of point of view, purpose, and audience?  What are some of the ways that we can be misled if we are not careful?  How can misinformation lead to injustice?

8) Jigsaw historical research in order to explore the novel’s context.

This To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity allows students to practice research methods while gaining understanding of the novel’s context.  Students conduct research regarding the women’s movement, segregation, and The Great Depression.

NOTE: This task requires access to technology or reference materials.

Title: 1930’s America

Common Core Standard: Writing 7 (research questions)

Into:  Quick-write: Generate research questions on one or more of the following topics.

• Feminism in the 1930’s
• Segregation in America
• The Great Depression

Chart student responses as a class.  Explain that they might start by asking straightforward, simple questions but ultimately want to arrive at open-ended questions that require a thoughtful answer.  For example, they might move from “Could a black person marry a white person?” to “What were the factors impeding interracial marriage?”

Explain that we are building understanding of the context of To Kill a Mockingbird .

Through:  Students are to conduct a short research project based on a research question of their choosing.  As research proceeds, it is typical to fine-tune, narrow, broaden, or redirect the research question.

• Preliminary research question
• Preliminary research
• Final research question
• Formal research (Decide how formal you want this to be regarding citation etc.)
• Composition

Beyond:  Students organize their research into a presentation for the class.

9) Debate the jury system.

This To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity gets students to argue about one element of our criminal justice system: the jury.  Students debate on whether or not this system is the best method of deciding guilt.

NOTE: Access to research technology is helpful but not essential for this To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity.

Title: Jury System on Trial

Common Core Standard: Writing 1 (writing argument)

Into: Quick-write: Perhaps you have heard people talking positively or negatively about jury duty.  Would you want to serve on a jury or would you try to find a way to get out of it? Explain your reasons.

Explain that the American criminal justice system decides guilt based on the conclusions of a jury of twelve ordinary people from the community.  The two sides present information and the jury must reach a unanimous decision: guilty (beyond a reasonable doubt) or not guilty.  The judge then rules on the penalty.

Outbound link: “This is Why Juries Shouldn’t Decide Court Cases” from Business Insider

Outbound link: “Why Juries Work Best” from The Guardian

Through:  Students will form groups in order to conduct a debate on the proposition.

Proposed: The jury system is so flawed that the government must take actions to implement a new system to decide guilt in criminal cases.

Remind students that even if they are personally unsure of their position, they can still argue it effectively.

Beyond:  Which side won the debate and why? Have you made up your own mind about the jury system? Explain.

Related Post:  To Kill a Mockingbird Unit Plan (Grade 8 to Grade 10)

10) Reflect on inclusion. (How Accepting Are You?)

Students will practice some introspection in this To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity.  They will use a lesson adapted from Teaching Tolerance to think about being more inclusive and understanding.

Title: Tolerance and Understanding in School

Common Core Standard: Speaking and Listening 1 (collaboration and discussion)

Into: “ How accepting are you?” Quiz

Rate each statement on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 = very true).

• I do not have time for people who do not see things my way.
• I do not introduce myself to new people in my school or neighborhood.
• I always sit with the same people at lunch or during activities.
• I tend to judge people based on how they dress.
• My group of friends is tight-knit and does not like others butting in.
• I do not associate with people if they are unpopular with my group.
• I worry about being seen with some people.
• I often make fun of others to their face.
• I often make fun of people behind their back.
• I am not concerned about hurting people’s feeling online.
• I feel that people who are picked on bring it on themselves.
• I do not need to understand others because others do not try to understand me.
• I can tell everything I need to know about someone by looking at them.
• I enjoy it when others are mocked or criticized.
• I know that my point of view is the right point of view.

Discuss the quiz results as a class and explain that a major theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is about accepting others.

Through / Beyond:  “ Cliques in schools” from Teaching Tolerance

To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activities summary:

• Build on prior knowledge (Jim Crow and segregation)
• Growing up (point of view)
• Review symbolism
• Explore the controversy
• Hypocrisy skits
• Profiles in courage
• The Scottsboro Affair
• Jigsaw research
• Debate the Jury System
• How Accepting Are You?

Thanks for checking out To Kill a Mockingbird Pre-reading Activities!

I hope that this post has given you some ideas that you can use to prepare students for reading To Kill a Mockingbird .  The book will mean more to the students when they can contextualize the novel and engage with the key elements.

Related post:  15 To Kill a Mockingbird Project Ideas

Related post: To Kill a Mockingbird Anticipation Guide

Featured image by Hale Centre Theatre

Task Cards: To Kill A Mockingbird, Rubric, Student Centers, Writing Activities

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Writing fluency! Use task cards at student centers or individual student desks to improve writing fluency for state writing assessment tests. Novel study extension activity for To Kill A Mockingbird. 42 Writing Activities.

42 Task Cards for To Kill A Mockingbird can be used as:

Learning Centers

Group Discussions

Bell Ringers or Exit Tickets

Scavenger Hunt

Game-Based Review

Independent Work

Jigsaw Activity

Think-Pair-Share

Gallery walk

Differentiated Instruction

Performance Assessment

Test Prep Stations

Literature Circles

Short Stories

Product includes: Presentation in PPTX, Google Slides, Pngs, and PDF can be edited

Teacher Document - Ways to Use Task Cards in the Classroom

Short Story Rubric in pdf and docx

Short Story Graphic Organizer

Student Recording Sheet in pdf, png, pptx, and Google Slides

42 Task Cards in PPTX, Google Slides, Pngs and PDF

Blank Task Cards included

Teacher Suggestions for use of Task Cards in docx and pdf

Please contact seller with any questions. Seller is a member of National Writing Project and a Lilly Teacher Creativity Grant recipient.

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Non-Fiction Test Prep 3 Tiers

Writing Fluency: Fifteen Minute Quickwrites

Creative Writing: Enclosed Space

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