To+Kill+A+Mockingbird

[|"Harper Lee: Gregarious for a Day"], by Ginia Bellafante, NY Times, 2006
 * Summary **
 * Test yourself **

http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/quiz/killmockingbird/1/
 * Historical Connection/Background **

//**For each topic read the information and then discuss in your groups. Make sure to have one person write down notes about what you discuss, your ideas and thoughts. You will share these with the whole group.**//

An abuse of rights
Scout grew up during the **//Jim Crow//** era. Read about it [|here]. In your groups describe what the Jim Crow era was and how it would affect those living it that time.
 * Jim Crow laws**

Read Mildred Loving's story below. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/obituaries/2004406157_lovingobit11.html
 * Interracial marriages**

Read the article above. Can you imagine not being able to marry someone because of their skin color? Can you imagine going to prison for this? What is your response to this story?

Discuss what you think is happening in this photo. Now click on the picture to find out. What does this show about the United States at this time?
 * The** **Little Rock** **Nine**


 * The Death of Emmett Till**

Watch the youtube and read the lyrics. Why do you think people could do such a horrible crime? Why do you think Bob Dylan wrote this song, what is the message he is telling us? media type="youtube" key="QjfGcRM35xg&hl=en" height="355" width="425"

[|The Death of Emmett Till] Bob Dylan "Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago, When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door. This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well, The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up. They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what. They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat. There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain. The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie, Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial, Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till. But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime, And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs. For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free, While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust, Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust. Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow, For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan. But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give, We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Read about the history of African Americans and the fight for change in the link above.
 * The struggle for civil rights**
 * Guiding Questions for the novel **


 * Activities **



Reflect on the enduring understandings of this unit:
 * Connections **
 * **Systems can create inequities**
 * **Change is continual**
 * **Democracy is a process**

1. Was the system to blame for the inequities in To Kill a Mockingbird?

2. Compare the events of the novel with The Declaration of Independence. Identify one area of contradiction.

3. How does this novel depict the enduring understanding, “Democracy Is A Process.”

=Literature Circle Assignments=

Group Assignments
Ms. Muench

Now click here.