To Kill a Mockingbird – A Facing History and Ourselves Study Guide

Week Content
1-2 Introduction to the novel: To Kill a Mockingbird is set in a small town in Alabama in the 1930s, a town much like the one in which author Harper Lee
came of age. The plot of To Kill a Mockingbird is driven forward by the conflict that the main characters experience as their beliefs about justice and
morality come into conflict with the mores of the society they inhabit. The novel interweaves two primary plots: Atticus Finch’s effort to follow his
conscience and break the unwritten rules of the Jim Crow criminal justice system, and the socialization of Atticus’s children—Scout and Jem—as they
negotiate the spoken and unspoken rules of their community. Throughout the novel we observe these three individuals seeking to define their
identities both within and in opposition to their society’s moral universe.

Central question: What factors influence our moral growth? What kinds of experiences help us learn how to judge right from wrong?

In order to start to understand this question we need to have an understanding about identity, stereotyping and the role of the individual in society.
The Individual in Society: One’s identity is a combination of many things. It includes the labels others place on us, as well as ideas we have about who
we want to be. Gender, ethnicity, religion, occupation, and physical characteristics all contribute to one’s identity. So do ties to a particular
neighbourhood, school, community, or nation. Our values and beliefs are also a part of who we are as individuals, as are the experiences that have
shaped our lives.

Focus Questions:
1. What is identity? To what extent do we determine our own identities? What influence does society have?
2. What are stereotypes, and how do they affect how we see ourselves and how others see us?
3. How does our need to belong influence our identity? How does it lead to the formation of ‘in’ groups and ‘out’ groups in our society?

 Discuss these questions with students and get them to jot down their thoughts on each question.
- Handout 1.1: Creating and Identity Chart
- Watch the 8 minute video: ‘How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can do’ on YouTube and complete Handout 1.2
- Handout 1.6 Stories We Tell Ourselves
 Psychologist Deborah Tannen states: “We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups. It’s a
natural tendency, since we must see the world in patterns in order to make sense of it; we wouldn’t be able to deal with the daily onslaught
of people and objects if we couldn’t predict a lot about them and feel that we know who or what they are”.
 - Ask students to respond to Tannen in their journals. Do they agree? What is the benefit of seeing the world in patterns and viewing
others as representatives of groups? What gets lost when we categorize our experiences in this way? What kinds of stories do we attach
to the groups we use to categorize other people? When is it offensive or harmful to see others as representatives of groups? Finally, ask
students to write a working definition for the word stereotype. In their definitions, they might reflect on the word’s connotation. Is it
positive or negative? Does the connotation of the word imply that stereotypes are useful or harmful? When does a judgment about an
individual based on the characteristics of a group become offensive? Give students the opportunity to share and refine their definitions
with one or more classmates.

Maycomb’s Ways: Understanding the Setting

Understanding the setting of a novel is more than simply knowing the time and place in which the plot takes place. The setting helps us understand
the choices the characters make because it helps shape the possibilities and options available.

Before reading Chapters 1-7, consider having students reflect in their journals on the following questions:
1. Think about a community in which you are a member—for instance, your school, religious community, family, or group of friends. What are
some of the most important rules in that community? Are these rules written down? What are the most important unwritten rules, those not
written down but which everyone knows about?
2. Write about a pivotal choice you have made in your life or an experience you have had that was influenced by the setting. What other options
might have been available to you if you lived in a different place and time? What circumstances would have influenced you to make a
different decision?

After Reading Section 2: All Students are to complete the following questions
1. What do Scout, Jem, and Dill know about Boo Radley? What parts of their understanding of Boo are based on facts and reliable information?
What parts are based on gossip and legend? How can the reader tell the difference between the facts about the Radley family and the
legends?
2. How does the relationship between Scout and Jem change over the first seven chapters? How does Scout understand the changes Jem
undergoes?
3. In Chapter 3, Atticus and Scout talk about “Maycomb’s ways.” What stands out to you most about the customs, traditions, and unwritten
rules of Maycomb’s society?
4. What is “the other”? Who are “the others” in Maycomb? What roles do race, class, and gender play in establishing who is the other? What
role does gossip and superstition play? What about stereotypes? What about fear?
 5. What events and experiences begin to change Jem’s feelings about Boo Radley in these chapters? What does this suggest about how we can
better understand people different from us?
6. How does race complicate the circumstances of the characters we have met so far? What role does Calpurnia play in the Finch family? What
authority does she have in the Finch household that she might not have elsewhere in Maycomb?
Week Historical Context:
2/3 - Introduce The Great Depression and question what students already know about it. Complete a KWL chart on Prior knowledge before
giving out Handout 2.1 – read through and update KWL chart after reading.
- Read through Handout 2.2 – FDR’s Speech and link it back to Chapter 1 – “the people of Maycomb had recently been told that they had
nothing to fear but fear itself.”
- Handout 2.4 – ‘Analyze Firsthand Accounts of the Depression’. The accounts included here from Virginia Durr, Eileen Barth, and Emma
Tiller explore the shame and humiliation experienced by many Americans who found themselves dependent on others, or on government
relief programs, for survival. These three accounts can help deepen students’ understanding of the Cunningham and Ewell families in To
Kill a Mockingbird; each family deals with poverty and dependence on others in a different way. Students may also connect the
experience of Emma Tiller, an African American sharecropper, to the character Tom Robinson, who will be introduced in the second
section of the book. Encourage a class discussion about the effects of the Depression and make connections to characters within the
novel.
- Refer back to the central question that was mentioned in Week 1: What factors influence our moral growth? What kinds of experiences
help us learn how to judge right from wrong? Can we update our responses given everything we’ve just covered?
Chapters 8 – 11:
Ask students to reflect in their workbooks the following questions:
1. What is courage? Write about a person or group from your own personal experience, the news or history who behaved courageously. What
made his or her actions courageous?
2. How do you define conscience? Write about a time when you or someone you know chose to act according to conscience. What were the
circumstances of the choice? What were the consequences?

Introduce “Universe of Obligation”

Universe of obligation: The circle of individuals and groups toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for
amends. In other words, those that a society believes have rights that are worthy of respect and protection.
1. Ask students to record the definition in their journals and then discuss its meaning with a classmate. They might also discuss briefly who they
think is included in Maycomb’s universe of obligation and who they think is excluded.
 2. Pass out Handout 3.1: “‘Universe of Obligation’: Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s.” This handout provides a graphic organizer of concentric
circles that can help students map Maycomb’s universe of obligation in more detail. Prompt them to start inside the center circle (Circle #1)
and describe there the residents of Maycomb who receive the most respect and protection from the community’s spoken and unspoken
rules. They can add descriptions of those who receive different levels of respect and protection to each of the next three levels in the
diagram. If there are any residents of Maycomb who they believe don’t receive any respect or protection, students can write them outside of
the outermost circle.
3. After they complete their diagrams, have students share their thinking with one or more classmates. What similarities and differences do
they notice in the ways that they mapped Maycomb’s universe of obligation? What differences account for the positions of different groups
of residents in Maycomb’s universe of obligation? What characteristics seem to define one’s place?

Identity Charts: Create identity charts for Scout, Gem and Atticus. Include quotations from the text on their identity charts, as well as their own
interpretations of the character or figure based on their reading.

Week 4 Chapter 8: Making Connections

1. Based on what you know so far, who do you think is included in Maycomb’s universe of obligation? Who do you think is excluded? Look for evidence in
the text to support your answers.
2. Individuals can also have a universe of obligation (or circle of responsibility), consisting of the people for whose safety and well-being they feel
responsible. What do we learn about Boo Radley’s universe of obligation in this chapter? Do his actions in this chapter reveal him to be similar to or
different from the person Scout and Jem think he is? How does this refute the gossip and legend about the Radleys that the children spread?
3. Is it easy or difficult for Jem and Scout to change their apparent misconceptions about Boo? Find evidence in the chapter to support your answer for
each character

Chapter 9: Making Connections

1. What is Aunt Alexandra’s vision for what is “lady-like”? How does Scout respond to that vision? What does Atticus think about Scout’s conformity to
gender roles?
2. Discussing the Tom Robinson case with Uncle Jack, Atticus refers to “Maycomb’s usual disease.” What does he mean? Why doesn’t he suffer from it? 6.
What does it mean to be a “Finch”? What does it mean to Aunt Alexandra? What does it mean to Atticus?
3. How does Atticus explain his reasons for defending Tom Robinson? What factors influenced his choice to take the case seriously? How does he expect
the case will turn out?
4. Atticus explains to Scout: “This time we aren’t fighting the Yankees, we’re fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get,
they’re still our friends and this is still our home.” Are there some fights you can have with friends that make it impossible to remain friends? What types
 of fights are those? What does it say about Atticus that he doesn’t view the insults he receives for defending Tom Robinson as reason enough to end any
friendships? How can you respond when friends or family members express views that you find abhorrent?

Chapter 10: Making Connections

1. What do we learn at the beginning of Chapter 10 about the way that Scout and Jem feel about Atticus? How does Atticus’s defense of Tom Robinson
reinforce those feelings?
2. Atticus instructs Scout and Jem that “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” What does this advice mean? Look for evidence in the text to help you explain it.
How does this advice help explain why Scout and Jem did not know that their father was “the deadest shot in Maycomb County”? How does Miss
Maudie explain Atticus’s feelings about his sharpshooting skills?
3. Both the mockingbird and the mad dog are symbols. Based on what you have read so far, what or who in this story might the mockingbird symbolize?
What or who might the mad dog symbolize? Look for evidence to support or refute your hypothesis as you read the rest of the novel.
4. How does Harper Lee describe Atticus’s movement after he takes the rifle from Heck Tate? How does she use simile and personification to describe how
Scout perceives the passage of time? What does this indicate about the importance of the events that follow?

Chapter 11: Making Connections

1. After Jem vandalizes Mrs. Dubose’s flower bed, he and Scout wait in their living room for Atticus to come home. Scout narrates: Two geological ages
later, we heard the soles of Atticus’s shoes scrape the front steps. The screen door slammed, there was a pause—Atticus was at the hat rack in the hall—
and we heard him call “Jem!” His voice was like the winter wind. Atticus switched on the ceiling light in the livingroom and found us there, frozen still.
What literary devices does Harper Lee use to communicate how Scout and Jem feel upon Atticus’s arrival?
2. Why does Atticus think Mrs. Dubose is a “great lady”? Do you agree with him?
3. Jem responds to Atticus’s praise of Mrs. Dubose by saying: “A lady? After all those things she said about you, a lady?” Why does he question whether or
not Atticus should refer to her as a “lady”? How does Maycomb society define a proper lady? Does Atticus agree? Do you agree?
4. What lesson do you think Atticus wants Jem to learn by having him read to Mrs. Dubose?
5. How did you define courage at the beginning of this section? How does Atticus define “real courage”? What metaphor does he use to describe what he
believes is the wrong idea about courage? Which characters in the novel so far display courage?
6. Scout tells Atticus that he must be wrong to represent Tom Robinson because most people in Maycomb think it is wrong. How does Atticus respond?
7. How did you define conscience at the beginning of this section? How would you refine your definition based on what you have read in this chapter?
What does it mean to be able to live with one’s self?
8. Atticus advises Scout: “It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt
you.” Do you agree? Are insults harmless? When might they cause real damage?