To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter Responses

To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter Responses

PART ONE:

Divide your section in half (or by the number of members in your group). For your partial section complete the following:

1. Write a detailed summary of your section. Highlight the significant events, characters and settings of your section. (Full-text will be submitted - point form notes will be created for the class handout)

2. Document 5 significant quotations on the quotation template provided. (Quotes should be provided in this template format, on your handout)

PART TWO:

For the full reading section each student will complete the following:

Chose one form of reading response to complete and present * Each member of the group must choose a different type of reading response (contextual, current connection, or imager/symbolism and theme) * full-text version submitted (minimum 500 words) – point form notes on handout

a. Contextual (Relating to issues of the era)

Considering the background topics we researched prior to reading, discuss how these issue relate to the text. Use explicit examples from the context (history) and the text (To Kill a Mockingbird). Discuss 2 topics taken from the presentations, making significant inference between what you are reading and the context: Slave Trade, KKK, The Underground Railroad, American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, Jim Crow Laws, The Southern US, Black Tuesday and The Great Depression, The Role of Women in the South (1930s), Scottsboro Trials, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Emmett Till, Harper Lee.

b. Current Connections (Self, Text and World)

Considering your own personal knowledge of events/situations that you have experienced, seen in other texts (stories, novels, movies, television, etc.), or know about current issues (post 1960s – i.e. O.J. Simpson Trials, US Housing Crash, etc.), discuss two explicit connections to the text (To Kill a Mockingbird), making inferences about issues.

c. Imagery/Symbolism and Theme (Setting, etc.)

Considering descriptions of setting, character, plot, objects, etc. discuss the imagery and symbolism and theme in the text. How do these contribute to your understanding of the story, foreshadow future situations, and relate to broader issues beyond the text.

RUBRIC

| |0 |1 |2 |3 |4 |
|Knowledg| | | | |Summary represents an advanced |
|e | | | | |knowledge of the text |
|Thinking| | | | |Quotations represent an |
| | | | | |advanced understanding of the |
| | | | | |discernment of significant |
| | | | | |quotes |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | |The description of the |
| | | | | |significance of the quotes is |
| | | | | |highly advanced |
|Communic| | | | |Handout demonstrates advanced |
|ation | | | | |clarity and organization |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | |Student demonstrates an |
| | | | | |advanced understanding of |
| | | | | |paraphrasing for oral |
| | | | | |presentations |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | |Writing is highly advanced in |
| | | | | |terms of organization, grammar,|
| | | | | |spelling, vocabulary (submitted|
| | | | | |summary and reflection) |
|Applicat| | | | |Reading response demonstrates |
|ion | | | | |an advanced ability to make |
| | | | | |connections to broader concepts|
| | | | | |and ideas |

Name: ___________________________________________________

Chapter Response Examples: Taken from Chapter One

Summary Example:

The story is narrated by a young girl named Jean Louise Finch, mostly identified as Scout. Scout explains the circumstances that led to the broken arm that her older brother, Jem, sustained years earlier; and recounts her family history. The first of her ancestors to come to America fled England to escape religious persecution and established a successful farm on the banks of the Alabama River. The farm, called Finch’s Landing, supported the family for many years. The first Finches to make a living away from the farm were Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, who became a lawyer in the nearby town of Maycomb, and his brother, Jack Finch, who went to medical school in Boston. Their sister, Alexandra Finch, stayed to run the Landing.

A successful lawyer, Atticus makes a solid living in Maycomb, a tired, poor, old town in the grips of the Great Depression. He lives with Jem and Scout on Maycomb’s main residential street. Their cook, an old black woman named Calpurnia, helps to raise the children and keep the house. Atticus’s wife died when Scout was two, so she does not remember her mother well. But Jem, four years older than Scout, has memories of their mother that sometimes make him unhappy.

In the summer of 1933, when Jem is nearly ten and Scout almost six, a peculiar boy named Charles Baker Harris moves in next door. The boy, who calls himself Dill, stays for the summer with his aunt, Miss Rachel Haverford, who owns the house next to the Finches’. Dill doesn’t like to discuss his father’s absence from his life, but he is otherwise a talkative and extremely intelligent boy who quickly becomes the Finch children’s chief playmate. All summer, the three act out various stories that they have read. When they grow bored of this activity, Dill suggests that they attempt to lure Boo Radley, a mysterious neighbor, out of his house.

Arthur “Boo” Radley lives in the run-down Radley Place, and no one has seen him outside it in years. Scout recounts how, as a boy, Boo got in trouble with the law and his father imprisoned him in the house as punishment. He was not heard from until fifteen years later, when he stabbed his father with a pair of scissors. Although people suggested that Boo was crazy, old Mr. Radley refused to have his son committed to an asylum. When the old man died, Boo’s brother, Nathan, came to live in the house with Boo. Nevertheless, Boo continued to stay inside.

Dill is fascinated by Boo and tries to convince the Finch children to help him lure this phantom of Maycomb outside. Eventually, he dares Jem to run over and touch the house. Jem does so, sprinting back hastily; there is no sign of movement at the Radley Place, although Scout thinks that she sees a shutter move slightly, as if someone were peeking out.

(Adapted from SparksNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section1.html )

Quotation Example:

|Quotation |Reference |Speaker |Context |Significance |
| | | | | |
|“Being Southerners, it was a source of shame |(Lee 3) |Narrator: Scout |The narrator is introducing|As Southerners, people were expected to take a |
|to some members of the family that we had no | |– Jean Louise |her family history and |stance on significant issues like war and |
|recorded ancestors on either side of the | |Finch |giving a basic introduction|conflict. This reference, to a battle that |
|Battle of Hastings” | | |to the story. |happened centuries ago with family in England, |
| | | | |implies a general pattern of neutrality |
| | | | |throughout the generations. |
| | | | | |
| | | | |It could be foreshadowing future conflicts and |
| | | | |how her family will respond. |

Mrs. Bruce Miller

Reading Response Examples

Contextual Example:

Biographical Context In chapter one of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout, the young narrator, provides the reader with a lot of details on her life and small-town upbringing that recount the author’s own personal life. The similarities between Harper Lee and her fictional counterpart are reflected in the parallels between the fictional setting of the novel and Lee's own hometown. Scout recounts that she was born and bred in the fictional town of Maycomb, in the state of Alabama which mirrors Harper Lee’s own upbringing in Monroeville, Alabama. Like Lee, Scout is the daughter of Atticus Finch a respected small-town Alabama lawyer. Lee’s father was Amasa Coleman Lee, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, who served as a state senator and practiced as a lawyer in Monroeville, Alabama. Also, both Scout and Lee have related family names. The origin of the fictional family name of Finch comes from Lee’s own mother’s maiden name, Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. In addition, both Scout and Lee have similar close-knit relationships with their older brothers and childhood friends. In the novel, Scout’s older brother Jem, Dill and Scout are inseparable friends who spend their summer, “in routine contentment…improving [the] treehouse and…fussing, running through [the] list of dramas” (Lee, 8). Harper Lee, admittedly had an older brother who she was very close to and an equivalent childhood buddy in Truman Capote whom many speculate is the base source for Dill. Lee has been quoted as saying, “[A writer] should write about what he knows and write truthfully.”(Harper Lee). She seems to have taken her own advice and infused her novel with elements of her own experiences and memories to create the fictional world of Scout and Maycomb, Alabama. Good writers can often fall back on familiarity or a knowledgeable subject to produce texts rather than do research for unfamiliar experiences and understandings. This may provide a kind of authenticity to the reality of the text that otherwise may not exist if the author had not experienced it, lived through it and eventually wrote about it. (Sources: http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/mockingbird/harper.htm)

Historical Context - The Great Depression in the American South

The way that Scout describes her hometown, the economic disparity and rigid class structure in Maycomb is very representative of any historical retelling of life in the southern U.S. during the Great Depression. Scout describes Maycomb as, “an old town” where people moved about slowly, and where, “there was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.” (Lee 5).

Many hardships were felt by all people during the depression of the 1930’s. The southern U.S. experienced the greater part of the tribulations because of its low economic status and slow economic development. President Roosevelt reinforced this status in 1938 by announcing that the American South “represented the nation’s number one economic problem.”

Scout’s description of her family’s status within Maycomb society and her introduction of Calpurnia suggest a mirroring of the social stratification and class structure that existed in the Southern U.S. in the 1930’s. Scout seems to enjoy a more privileged position within Maycomb society as she lives on a main residential street in town with her father, brother Jem and the cook, Calpurnia. This suggests that because her father was gainfully employed, respected in town and they had a cook that she enjoyed more financial stability than others. Atticus’ status within the Maycomb society is clear, “he was Maycomb born and bred; he knew his people, they knew him, and because of Simon Finch’s industry, Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town.” (5). In turn, Scout describes Calpurnia, the cook as, “something else….our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side.” (6). As a black woman, Calpurnia seems to have been relegated to the subservient role of cook. This mirrors the situation of blacks and whites in Southern U.S. in the 1930’s where most blacks, who were former slaves, were destitute and dependent upon others.

The economic crisis although felt by all, affected people differently dependent on where they fell in the rigid class structure of the South. Therefore, black people in the South not only had to deal with the ill effects of the Great Depression but also the race relations which largely marginalized them and made their suffering much worse because they were dependent on government officials, white people and the aid of family. (Sources: http://mgagnon.myweb.uga.edu/students/3090/04SP3090-Briggs.htm)

Mrs. Ferreira-Vieira

Connections Example:

Text to Self

Scout’s recount of her family history reminded me a lot of my own. Our family emigrated from England and Scotland generations ago and, like Scout, their history is somewhat non-descript. While we can trace our family tree in several directions, and back quite far, there do not seem to be any significant people, or participation in noteworthy events. I feel that the neutrality that Scout identifies as a trait of her ancestors would more than likely parallel my own due to this general lack of information. If something important were to have happened, I am certain its’ story would have been passed down.

This lack of familial significance breeds an indifference towards your ancestors and a lack of connection to your culture. Sometimes I envy individuals who have a strong sense of self in relation to their customs and traditions, as I feel our family lacks this. I am very intrigued by social customs and am encouraged to create more of my own for my future family.

On the other hand, this distance between self and culture I believe provides for a certain objectivism. As members of Canadian culture, with this “mosaic” of ethnicities, I believe we are more open-minded. We can stand back and observe situations, considering all sides and perspectives, where if you had a more distinct sense of cultural identity you may naturally, maybe subconsciously, be influenced towards certain perspectives on issues. This description of Scout’s family may represent this idea. If her family, by tradition, has not taken sides on major issues, perhaps this is a tradition that will allow Scout to make up her own mind concerning significant issues that she will face.

Text to World

The mention of the Finch’s housekeeper, Calpurnia, reminded me of Canada’s live-in nanny situation. Under Canadian law, nannies can come into, or be brought into, the country to work in family homes as child, elderly, or disabled persons caregivers. As such, they must live in a Canadian home and follow a series of work and living regulations.

Largely, they are women coming from “economically marginalized nations”(Hodge 61) looking for employment, money, and a better life for their families back home. Due to the fact that following two years of work they can gain their citizenship, women see this as an opportunity to advance in life and gain access to Canada. Unfortunately, the conditions under which these women currently work marginalizes and devalues them as citizens, and infringes on their human rights. They often live in sub-par conditions, work hours far beyond the law’s legal limits, are requested to do work that is not a part of their job description, and have limited access to contact back home. However, because of their desperate situation, fear or losing their job and their uneducated understanding of their rights in Canada, they do not speak out to better their situations, and thus the exploitation continues.

This situation parallels, in a minor sense, Calpurnia’s situation, but more so the situation of blacks in general of the times. Even though slavery had ended over a hundred years previously, segregation and discrimination were still rampant. As with Calpurnia, the jobs that black people held in the South were of a subservient nature, as those of immigrant live-in nannies in Canada. While in theory, Southern blacks in the mid-20th century were intended to share “equal” rights with white people at the time, consider the self-contradictory nature of the Jim Crow Laws, they were in fact still marginalized, devalued and their human rights were infringed upon. However, they too felt that jobs, such as Calpurnia’s, were their best option and feared repercussions if they were to ever contest their situation.

It is appalling that in our day in age, we continue to treat minorities and vulnerable peoples in such a way that directly benefits our lives and pocket books and ignores their lives, rights, and livelihoods. Considering the fact that it is cheaper to hire a live-in nanny from the Philippines than to put two children in Day Care, and that Canadians ignorantly feel that they are “helping” these women’s lives, while media focus has begun to highlight this issue with immigrant Canadian live-in nannies, without a drastic change in Canadian law Canadian families will unfortunately continue to selfishly or ignorantly hire these individuals.

Mrs. Bruce Miller

Imagery, Symbolism and Theme Example:

Is it possible to talk about symbolism in chapter one? It is early, but there are two symbols and a theme that it seems Lee is introducing to us: the setting of the small town itself, and Boo Radley; both of these hints at the theme of prejudice. The seemingly rambly chapter gives us the history of the town and its inhabitants. But its primary purpose seems to be creating a setting where prejudice flourishes. Not just the racism of the south, but the everyday prejudice of neighbours and friends. Thus this “tired old town”, as Scout describes, a sleepy town, is set up as an incubator of prejudice. We are prepared for the racism later in the novel by seeing these neighbours practice prejudice against each other daily.

The best thing about living in a small town is that everybody knows who you are. That is also the worst thing. You can’t escape your or your family’s past.

A number of introductions to characters hint at this theme. The story of Atticus’s first clients, the Haverfords, introduces us to the town’s prejudice that Haverfords are jack asses. Later, when we meet Dill’s aunt Miss Rachel Haverford, we already know what to expect from her. Even the casual description of Scout’s Mother’s death from heart attack includes the town’s belief that bad hearts “ran in her family”.

Dill is also a potential victim of this small town prejudice. The circumstances of his birth (his mother left Maycomb to have him and, as Scout points out, without a father he is “illegitimate”, a shameful situation in 1930’s Alabama) are a result of his family’s fear that he would be susceptible to the prejudices of the town.

And of course the most significant example of this prejudice and the most obvious symbol is Boo Radley. We get the entire sad history of the Radley family and their son, described as a malevolent phantom. The townspeople express their own prejudices about the Radleys (any stealthy crimes are blamed on Boo, Negroes cross the street rather than pass the house, and children would rather go hungry than eat the Radley pecans that fall into the schoolyard). But it is the children, in their ignorant and child-like ways, who make Boo the focus of their curiosity. They have never seen Boo (strange enough to have never seen your neighbour) but Jem is able to give a complete ‘children’s’ description of him (drooling and pop-eyed and bloody and all). In their ignorance, they have created their own truth about Boo: they have prejudged him.

Scout refers to Boo as a ghost, and of course he is to them: What is a ghost? It used to be a person, is still around but rarely if ever seen, often creates fear and is the product of a sad life. To the children, this is Boo.

So, the small town setting; peaceful, lazy, safe, is full of innocent and not so innocent prejudices, hinted at in this chapter and most fully seen in the character of Boo Radley.

Mr. Gallie

Handout Example:

To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter Response
Chapter 1
Mrs. Bruce Miller
Summary

Narrator: - Jean Louise (Scout) Finch – 6 year old girl - Speculating where story started - Jem’s broken arm

Family history: - Ancestors escaped religious persecution - England → Alabama River Farm (Finch’s Landing) - Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, became a lawyer - Atticus’ brother, Jack Finch, went to medical school in Boston - Their sister, Alexandra Finch, stayed to run the Landing.

Maycomb: - a tired, poor, old town in the grips of the Great Depression.

Home: - Main street in Maycomb - Father, Scout, Jem, and black cook, Calpurnia - Atticus’ wife has passed – Scout has no recollection, Jem does

Dill: - Summer 1933, Charles Baker (Dill)Harris moves in next door (with aunt Rachel Haverford) - Dill avoids discussing father’s absence from his life - talkative and intelligent boy - becomes the Finch children’s chief playmate - the three act out various stories that they have read - Dill suggests that they lure a mysterious neighbour out of his house.

Arthur “Boo” Radley: - lives in the run-down Radley Place - no one has seen him outside it in years. - Rumour o father imprisoned him in house as punishment (as a child) o fifteen years later, stabbed his father with scissors o Is Boo crazy? Mr. Radley refused to have son committed o old man died, Boo’s brother, Nathan, came to live in house o Boo continued to stay inside. - Dill convinces the Finch children to lure Boo outside - dares Jem to touch the house - Scout thinks she sees a shutter move – is someone peeking out?
Quotations:

|Quotation |Reference |Speaker |Context |Significance |
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|“Being Southerners, it was a source of|(Lee 3) |Narrator: Scout – Jean |The narrator is introducing her family |As Southerners, people were expected to take a stance on significant issues like war and |
|shame to some members of the family | |Louise Finch |history and giving a basic introduction |conflict. This reference, to a battle that happened centuries ago with family in England,|
|that we had no recorded ancestors on | | |to the story. |implies a general pattern of neutrality throughout the generations. |
|either side of the Battle of Hastings”| | | | |
| | | | |It could be foreshadowing future conflicts and how her family will respond. |
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Reading Response:

Text to Self

- Scout’s recount of her family history - Our family emigrated from England and Scotland – non-descript history - no significant people, or participation in noteworthy events - lack of familial significance breeds indifference towards ancestors - lack of connection to your culture. - I envy individuals who have a strong sense of self in relation to their customs and traditions - distance between self and culture provides for objectivism - “Mosaic” Canadian culture I believe we are more open-minded. - Stronger cultural identity may subconsciously influence perspectives on issues. - will this allow Scout to make up her own mind concerning significant issues that she will face?

Text to World

- Finch’s housekeeper, Calpurnia in relation to Canada’s live-in nanny situation. - nannies from other countries work in family homes as child, elderly, or disabled persons caregivers - must live in a Canadian home and follow a series of work and living regulations. - women coming from “economically marginalized nations”(Hodge 61) looking for a better life - following two years of work they can gain their citizenship - working conditions devalues them as citizens, and infringes on human rights - live in sub-par conditions, work hours beyond legal limits, are requested to do work that is not a part of their job description, and have limited access to contact back home. - desperate situation, fear or losing their job and uneducated understanding of their rights in Canada, they do not speak out

- situation parallels Calpurnia’s situation and that of blacks in general of the times - segregation and discrimination - subservient jobs - “equal” rights not respected - we continue to treat minorities and vulnerable peoples in such a way that directly benefits our lives and pocket books and ignores their lives, rights, and livelihoods. - cheaper to hire a live-in nanny from the Philippines than to put two children in Day Care - Canadians feel that they are “helping”