To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee - crestwoodschools.org packe… · To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee What do we learn, in this chapter, about Harper Lee’s view of the education
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
‘Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’
Name: ................................................................................................................... Form: .................................................................................................................... English Teacher: ...................................................................................................
‘The things they say about B – Mr Arthur’ are, according to Miss Maudie, ‘three-fourths colored folks and one-fourth Stephanie Crawford’. What does she mean by this?
Chapter 6 Why do the children choose that particular night to look in the window of the Radley place?
What else do they find in the tree? What significance do you think these objects have: a) for the children? b) for the giver?
Why do you think Nathan Radley fills the hole in the tree? Why is Jem upset by this?
Chapter 8
What happens that convinces Scout that ‘the world’s endin’’?
Jem and Scout stand in front of the Radley place whilst Miss Maudie’s house is on fire. What happens to Scout that is strange, and who does Jem think is responsible for it?
When Atticus says ‘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’ what does he mean?
Now skim read your work on the first part of the novel.
What lessons, from the most trivial to the most important, do the three children learn? (Make sure that you use quotations and give references to prove your points)
hat new things does Scout learn about how the black people live?
ead the extract that follows, and then answer the questions:
“Cal,” I asked, “why do you talk nigger-talk to the – to your folks when you know it’s not right?” “Well, in the first place I’m black – ” “That doesn’t mean you hafta talk that way when you know better,” said Jem. Calpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her hat down carefully over her ears. “It’s right hard to say,” she said. “Suppose you and Scout talked coloured-folks’ talk at home – it’d be out of place, wouldn’t it? Now what if I talked white-folks’ talk at church, and with my neighbours? They’d think I was puttin’ on airs to beat Moses.” “But Cal, you know better,” I said. “It’s not necessary to tell all you know. It’s not ladylike – in the second place, folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.”
How might a) the white people and b) the coloured people respond to Bob Ewell’s statement ‘I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella’?
Why does Atticus make Bob write his name? What does this contribute to the trial?
Chapter 18 Summarise Mayella’s evidence in bullet points:
In pairs, decide on up to fifteen key events of chapters 17 and 18 and make a list of them, along with relevant quotations. Decide what emotions characters would be feeling at the time of these events.
On a piece of plain paper, draw a fortune line (see below for an example) to show the differing emotions of a) Scout and Jem; b) Mayella Ewell; c) Atticus; and d) Tom Robinson as events unfold.
How does Harper Lee create and sustain tension in this chapter and the preceding one?
Emotions – positive ones above the line; negative ones below
Events (in the correct order) – shown by relevant quotations
Chapter 19 What was Tom Robinson’s relationship with Mayella?
☺ 7. How does Harper Lee make use of the trial of Tom Robinson to explore
ideas about social and racial prejudice in the town of Maycomb?
☺ 8. Who do you think is being educated in To Kill a Mockingbird, and how?
☺ 9. How does Harper Lee use minor characters in To Kill a Mockingbird to explore some of the main concerns in the novel?
Choose three of the following:
Mrs Dubose
Mayella Ewell
Heck Tate
Dolphus Raymond
Tim Johnson
Grace Merriweather
Miss Caroline
Lula
Write about :
• why you chose these characters
• the importance of what they say and do
• how the writer uses them to explore her main concerns.
☺ 10. Jem, Scout and Dill are all young people who learn from people and events around them. How does Harper Lee show them learning and developing?
☺ 11. To what extent do you consider an understanding of Maycomb society to be
crucial to our understanding of events in the novel as a whole?
☺ 12. Explain what any one of these episodes contributes to the novel as a whole:
• The shooting of the rabid dog
• The visit to Cal’s church
• The children’s encounter with Mrs Dubose
☺ 13. ‘Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win’ (Atticus). Show the relevance of this statement to the actions and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird.
☺ 14. How far does Atticus put into practice his belief that ‘you never really
understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it’?