Starting a novel unit on the right foot is essential to overall success. Students may make snap judgements about whether the book will engage them or whether or not they can succeed in meeting the learning goals. These To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activities prepare students to meet the learning goals and pique their interest in the content.
Pre-reading Activities Contents:
- Anticipation Guide (preview themes and content)
- Pre-reading Slideshow
- Primary Source Gallery (1933-ish)
- Read-N-Share: Jim Crow Realities
- Discovery Writing: On Growing Up
- Personal Values Crest
- Urban Legends (or town or backwoods legends)
- Symbolism Primer: “The Necklace”
- Judging a Book by Its Cover
- Hypocrisy Editorial
NOTE: These ideas are all found in the TeachNovels unit for To Kill a Mockingbird, however, they are not all found in the pre-reading lessons sections. Some of the ideas come from later lessons and assignments.
1. Anticipation Guide (preview theme subjects)
Anticipation guides are brilliantly simple. Just asking students to consider several statements fosters the consideration of key theme subjects, the imagining of the setting / context, and engagement via personal perspectives. (Everyone likes to put their own viewpoints first.) Click the image above to open the PDF.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird Pre-reading Slideshow
To Kill a Mockingbird Pre-reading Slideshow (PDF version)
This To Kill a Mockingbird preview provides 28 slides to present as you start your exploration of Harper Lee’s masterpiece. It was created with classroom instruction (middle school or high school) in mind, but it could also help in homeschooling or independent study. This free PDF slideshow comes from To Kill a Mockingbird Lesson Plans & Materials.
3. Primary Source Gallery (1933-ish)
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in an imaginary Alabama town in the 1930s. (The author based much of the town on her real hometown, Monroeville, Alabama.) This setting requires some understanding of America’s history of slavery and racism against people of African descent. The United States did not invent slavery or race prejudice, but America’s particular system of slavery and its legacy are singular.
PRIMARY SOURCE GALLERY: The Jim Crow Era (12 primary source images)
You will gain greater understanding about the segregation era through primary sources. Conduct a brief research assignment in a small group. Once you can explain the context and importance of the primary source, you will share your findings with the class.
4. Read-N-Share: Jim Crow Realities
Harper Lee invented the town of Maycomb, but it was largely based on her real hometown. Today we will explore the realities of Jim Crow society through non-fiction readings.
You will read an assigned article on your own, discuss the key ideas and details with your group, and provide a summary of the article for the class.
- “Laws that Banned Mixed Marriages” (25 paragraphs) (Content broader than the title.) https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2010/may.htm
- “How Jim Crow–Era Laws Suppressed the Black Vote” (19 paragraphs)
https://www.history.com/articles/jim-crow-laws-black-vote - “Ku Klux Klan” (16 paragraphs)https://www.history.com/articles/ku-klux-klan
- “Jim Crow Etiquette” (14 paragraphs)
https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2006/september.htm - “Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate but Equal Doctrine” (19 short paragraphs)
https://www.history.com/articles/plessy-v-ferguson - “The Saga of The Scottsboro Boys” (40 short paragraphs) https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/the-saga-of-the-scottsboro-boys
- “The Green Book: The Black Travelers’ Guide to Jim Crow America” (9 paragraphs) https://www.history.com/articles/the-green-book-the-black-travelers-guide-to-jim-crow-america
- “A History of Black Beaches and Amusement Parks” (24 paragraphs) https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/history-black-beaches-and-amusement-parks
- “Sharecropping: Slavery Rerouted” (23 paragraphs) https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/harvest-sharecropping-slavery-rerouted/
- “Redlining” (10 long paragraphs) Housing & the 1930s mortgage market
https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/redlining - “Mary McLeod Bethune, True Democracy, and the Fight for Universal Suffrage” (15 long paragraphs) https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/mary-mcleod-bethune-true-democracy-and-the-fight-for-universal-suffrage.htm
- “Lynching in America” (14 paragraphs)
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/emmett-lynching-america/
5. Discovery Writing: On Growing Up
Some cultures and traditions include rites of passage, ceremonies signifying a new stage of one’s life. You might show that you are becoming an adult through a Bar/Bat Mitzvah (Jewish), a Vision Quest (Native American), a Quinceañera (Latina), a Walkabout (aboriginal Australian), a tattoo ceremony (Samoa), or a fast on Ramadan (Islam).
Your idea of adulthood might include a rite of passage, but this doesn’t explain what it means to be a grown-up. After all, some people seem to become adults at an early age, and others seem to never grow up. What does adulthood mean to you?
6. Personal Values Crest
One import subject in To Kill a Mockingbird is personal values. Sometimes our values come from our family and sometimes they are individual.
In Maycomb, Alabama, people take family values and traits very seriously. The narrator explains things like …
- “…they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jackass.” (5)
- “Atticus said the Ewells had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations. None of them had done an honest day’s work in his recollection.” (30)
- “… No Crawford Minds His Own Business, Every Third Merriweather Is Morbid, The Truth Is Not in the Delafields, …were simply guides to daily living.” (132)
Explore this idea by creating a heraldic image (coat of arms) that symbolizes your personal values.
7. Urban Legends (or town or backwoods legends)
INTO: The kids in the story show a morbid (dark) fascination with “Boo” Radley and the Radley house, a local legend shared by kids and adults alike. Some people enjoy being scared by movies, haunted attractions, ghost stories, and the like. Why is this? Do you enjoy these types of things?
FUN STORY: “Maybe You Will Remember” (8 minutes) from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Compose a short story based on a local legend. It need not be supernatural, but it must set a clear mood and be absolutely fascinating.
8. Symbolism Primer: “The Necklace”
An author might make a symbol out of an event, an object, a place, a song lyric, a person, an image, a memory, a gesture, a color – pretty much anything. The symbol can also represent almost anything – a character, an idea, an emotion, a place, and so on.
Lee uses symbolism in To Kill a Mockingbird, especially in her theme development. As you read the novel, pay attention to details that she imbues with special meaning.
We will calibrate our “symbolism radar” by reading a short story as a class.
SHARED READING: “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant (6 pages)
As we read the story, pay attention to any details that may symbolize bigger ideas.
NOTE: You may want to warn students of the sexist views reflected in this work from 1884.
THE NECKLACE (PDF, 40 slides to read aloud)
Other options:
- “The Grandfather” by Gary Soto (2 pages, personal essay)
- “Marigolds” by Eugenia W. Collier (7 pages, great connections to TKM)
9. Judging a Book by Its Cover
Preview the story using visual arts.
Option 1: Give each small group one To Kill a Mockingbird cover to analyze. Ask students to explain their cover to the class by thinking about treatment, emphasis, and artistic techniques.
Option 2: Have students look at all the book covers as a collection. Ask them what they conclude about the key elements and events of the story.
10. Hypocrisy Editorial
In the novel, a newspaper reporter writes an angry opinion article about an outrage.
The point of view used in To Kill a Mockingbird emphasizes the town’s hypocrisy as viewed by the kids.
Hypocrisy is when someone claims to have certain beliefs or values but behaves in a different way. People often despise or resent the hypocrisy of others. Hypocrisy can be found in our institutions, the people in our lives, and even… (GASP!) OURSELVES! It is often easier to sound virtuous than to act that way.
Can you think of some examples of hypocrisy? Is their an example of hypocrisy that really grinds your gears, sticks in your craw, rubs you the wrong way, or gets your goat? Write an editorial (opinion article intended for publication) explain why the hypocrisy is unaccebtable!
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