Starting a novel unit on the right foot is essential to overall success. Students often make snap judgments about whether the book will engage them or whether they can succeed in the learning goals. These To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activities pique interest and instill confidence as students take on unfamiliar material.
To Kill a Mockingbird Pre-reading Activities Menu:
- 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
- Family / Personal Values Design
- Urban Legends (or small-town or backwoods legends)
- Symbolism Primer and “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. Some of the ideas come from later lessons and assignments in the unit.
1. Anticipation Guide (preview theme subjects)
To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading anticipation guide (PDF)
Anticipation guides are brilliantly simple. Just asking students to consider several statements fosters consideration of key themes, imagining of the setting and context, and engagement through personal perspectives. (Everyone likes to express 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)
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)
CONTENT WARNING: OFFENSIVE IMAGES
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in an imaginary Alabama town in the 1930s. This setting requires some understanding of America’s history of racism against people of African descent. The United States did not invent slavery or race prejudice, but America’s 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. Family / Personal Values Design
One important theme subject in To Kill a Mockingbird focuses on personal values. These are the ideas and beliefs at the center of who you are. Sometimes our values come from our family and sometimes they are individual.
In the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird, people take family values and traits very seriously. Everyone in town knows that the Cunninghams value honesty, Maudie Atkinson values natural beauty, Alexandra Finch values propriety (being proper), and so on.
Values and traits are not always positive. The narrator gives commentary 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 own personal values.
7. Urban Legends (or small-town or backwoods legends)
INTO: The kids in the story show a morbid (dark) fascination with someone named “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? What makes for a local legend that people will want to hear and share?
FUN STORY: “Maybe You Will Remember” (8 minutes) from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Compose a short story in the form of a local legend. This legend can be one that you have heard or you can devise something entirely new. It need not be supernatural and it need not be scary, but it must set a clear mood and be absolutely fascinating.
8. Symbolism Primer and “The Necklace”
When a storyteller imbues a story element with additional meaning, it is called a symbol.
The 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.
Harper 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. As we read the story, pay attention to any details that may represent bigger ideas.
NOTE: You may want to warn students of the sexist views reflected in this work from 1884.
SHARED READING: “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant (6 pages)
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
This To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activity asks students to make predictions using visual arts.
Option 1: Give each small group a different To Kill a Mockingbird cover to analyze. Ask students to explain their assigned cover to the class by analyzing the 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 by cross-referencing the artistic interpretations.
10. Hypocrisy Editorial
In the novel, a newspaper reporter named Mr. Underwood writes an angry opinion article about something that happens in the town. The type of article is called an editorial. An editorial tries to persuade the readers and asks them to change their thinking or take action on a specific issue.
One key subject in the novel is the idea of hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is when someone claims to have certain beliefs or values but behaves differently. 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 there 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) explaining why the hypocrisy is unacceptable!
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Effective To Kill a Mockingbird pre-reading activities can make a tremendous difference in how students experience the novel. By introducing the historical context, themes, and ideas behind the story before students begin reading, teachers can help them engage more thoughtfully with Harper Lee’s characters and conflicts. Whether you use discussion questions, visual sources, creative activities, or a structured slideshow, strong pre-reading preparation helps students enter the world of Maycomb with curiosity and insight.