Knowledge Questions

1.  What does Atticus do for a living?
2.  In what state does the novel take place?
3.  From whose point of view is the story being told?
4.  Who is Calpurnia?  What is she like?
5.  What game does Dill invent?
6.  What do the children know about the Radley family history?
7.  What did Arthur (Boo) Radley do that landed him in county jail temporarily?
8.  According to Jem's description, what does Boo look like?
9.  What act of "courage" on Jem's part ends this chapter?

Analysis Questions

1.  How old do you think the narrator is in the story?  Give direct quotes from Chapter 1 that help you defend your response.
2.  Review the information about Dill.  What kind of person is he?  List several of your conclusions.  What do you know about his background that might account for these aspects of his character?

Journal Question

Have you ever done anything on a dare?  Did you regret it?  Why or why not?

Knowledge Questions

1.  What does Scout get in trouble for on her first day of school?  List three things.
2.  How does Miss Fisher feel at the end of her first day of teaching?  How do you know?
3.  What are the Cunninghams like?
4.  How did Scout learn to read?

Analysis Questions

1.  Who do you think is more to blame for the trouble on the first day of school, Scout or the teacher?  Explain.
2.  Given Miss Fisher's first activity with the first-graders (reading about the family cat), explain the irony in her reprimand to Scout: "Lets not let our imaginations run away with us, dear?"
3.  What do the "errors" Scout commits the first day have in common with one another? What does this tell you about Scout's first six years of life?

Journal Question

Describe what you remember about your first school experience.  If you cannot remember your first experience, try and recall a conflict that you had with your teacher.  Who was at fault?

Knowledge Questions

1.  How does Scout solve her problem with Walter Cunningham?
2.  How does Jem solve Scout's problem with Walter Cunningham?
3.  Why can't Walter Cunningham pass the first grade?
4.  What scared and shocked Miss Caroline?  (Do you know another name for this creature?)
5.  What agreement does Atticus make with Scout when he heard that her teacher did not want him to teach her any more about reading?

Analysis Questions

1.  When Scout questions Walter's table manners, what do you learn about Calpurnia and her place in the family?  Why do you think this might surprise some of the citizens of Maycomb?

2.  The narrator tells us, "In Maycomb County, hunting out of season was a misdemeanor at law, a capital felony in the eyes of the populace."
                (a) Put this sentence in your own words.
                (b) Why do you think the 'populace' would feel this way in 1935?
                (c) What does this statement tell you about the people of Maycomb?

Journal Question

Have you ever been in a fight?  What caused it?  How was it resolved?

*** Don't forget that you should have completed your setting chart by this point.

Knowledge Questions

1.  What’s the first gift that appears in the knothole of the oak tree? What other gifts do the children find? How do they react to what they have found?
2.  What new information does Dill provide about his father?
3.  How has the Boo Radley game changed?
4.  When Scout rolls into the Radley front yard in the tire, what does she hear?

Analysis Questions

1.  Who do you think put the gifts in the tree? Why?
2.  What evidence is there that Jem is changing? Give several specific examples.
3.  When Atticus reacts to the Boo Radley game, what do you notice about the way he disciplines his children? List several specific examples in which you think Atticus believes.

Journal Question

Imagine that Scout keeps a diary. What would her diary entry be for the day that Jem rolled the tire into the Radley yard?

Knowledge Questions

1. What does Scout admire about Miss Maudie?
2. What do you learn about Uncle Jack?
3. What new plan do the boys devise to get Boo to come out? Why doesn’t it work?
4. What does Dill say that causes Scout to accuse him of lying?
5. What direct order does Atticus give the children?

Analysis Questions

1. Explain Miss Maudie’s statement: "… sometimes the Bible in the hands of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hands of – oh, your father." Can you imagine any time this might be true? Describe it.
2. When Miss Maudie says: "If he’s not [crazy] he should be by now. The things that happen to people we will never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets …" What is she suggesting has happened to Boo? What types of secret do you think she might be talking about?
3. Atticus used the "oldest lawyers’ trick on record" to get Jem to admit that he was making a game of imitating the Radleys. What is the trick? Explain. Has anyone ever used the trick on you?

Journal Question

Have you ever been told to stay away from someone or something?  Did you stay away or did it make you more curious?

Knowledge Questions

1. How do the children plan to spend Dill’s last night in Maycomb?
2. What goes wrong with the children’s escape plan?
3. At whom does Mr. Nathan think he has fired his guns?
4. How do the children claim them have spent the evening?
5. What makes Jem decide to return to the Radley yard that night?

Analysis Questions

1. When the neighbors gather to discuss the gunshot many of the assumptions (and prejudices) of the adult community in Maycomb are revealed.  Reread the scene and list several assumptions that you notice.
2. The narrator explains that, “Matches were dangerous, but cards were fatal.”  The standard wisdom that the children should not play with matches is given a new, humorous twist in this scene.  As far as Maycomb children are concerned, in what ways might cards be more dangerous than matches – even fatal?
3. What makes Jem and Scout begin to “part company”?  How does each of them look at the situation?  What has Jem learned that Scout is still too young to see?
4. How does Scout’s affection shift in this chapter?  Whom does she grow closer to?  Whom does she grow apart from? How are these changes a sign of changes in her morals and maturity?

Journal Question

Choose one of the following:

What is the best gift you ever received?
Have you ever received a gift from someone whom you never expected would give you a gift?  How did it change your opinion of that person?

Knowledge Questions

1. What new information does Jem provide to Scout (and to us) about “that night” at Boo Radley’s?
2. Name the five gifts that they find in the knothole?
3. What event puts an end to the knothole gifts?

Analysis Questions

1. Why does Jem become interested in the content of the knothole, especially since the items are not valuable?
2. Why do you think Nathan Radley filled a knothole in a healthy tree?
3. Why do you think Jem cries at the end of the chapter?

Journal Question

When was the last time you built a snowman?  Do you remember the fun you used to have building snowmen?  What other fun games did you play when you were a kid that you do not play any more?  Why did you stop?

        Or

Can you remember something you and your friends did as a kid that was not really illegal, but that your parents may have been upset about if they knew about it.

Knowledge Questions

1. Who dies this winter?
2. What “aberration of nature” frightens Scout?
3. What method does Jem devise to make a snowman?  What was funny about the snowman?
4. When Maudie’s house begins to burn, what is the Finch family’s other concern?
5. What is Atticus’ reason for not helping to carry Miss Maudie’s furniture out?
6. Where did the blanket come from?

Analysis Questions

1. What do think would have happened if Scout had noticed who had put the blanket around her?
2. When Scout comes home with the blanket wrapped over her shoulders, Jem seemed to have lost his mind.  He began pouring out our secrets right and left….”  What is it that Jem is trying to get Atticus to understand?
3. When Miss Maudie’s house catches fire, Maycomb residents as well as others from as far as sixty miles away try to help.
(a) What do their actions indicate about the character of the people in that region?
(b) What does Miss Maudie’s attitude about the tragedy indicate about her character?  Quote appropriate lines from the chapter to support your statement.

Journal Activity

Have you ever experienced prejudice?  What type of prejudice was it?  Who was the perpetrator of this prejudice?  Who was the victim? How did it make you feel?

Knowledge Questions

1. Who is Tom Robinson?
2. What gift does Uncle Jack give the children?
3. What new habit has Scout picked up that bothers Uncle Jack?
4. What does cousin Francis tell Scout about Dill’s home life?
5. Why does Scout fight her cousin after the Christmas dinner at the Finch’s Landing?
6. What is “Maycomb’s usual disease”?

Analysis Questions

1. (a) What reason does Atticus give Scout for defending Tom Robinson?
(b) Analyze the statement, “Every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally.  This one’s mine, I guess.”  What is it about the case that strikes so deeply at what Atticus believes?
2. What does Atticus mean when he says, “the only thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience?  Can you think of any modern examples of people who went against the majority to do what they thought was right?
3. (a) What lessons does Scout teach Uncle Jack about children and what further lesson does Atticus add?
(b) What elements do the two lessons have in common?
(c) Do you agree with both lessons?  Give at least two reasons that you agree or disagree.
4. How does the plot shift in this chapter?

Journal Question

Have you ever been told a story about one of your parents that changed the way that you felt about them?  Explain what happened.

 Was there any event in which one of your parents’ behaviour was unexpected?  Explain.  How did it change the way that you felt about them?

Knowledge Questions

1. What does Scout see as Atticus’s chief fault?
2. Why does Uncle Jack say Atticus is unwilling to teach the kids how to shoot?
3. What crisis shows the children a surprising skill their father possesses?
4. Who is Heck Tate?
5. What is Atticus’s old nickname?

Analysis Questions

1. (a) According to Atticus, why is it a sin to kill a mockingbird?
(b) What is the larger principle involved here?
(c) What is a sin?
2. What vision symbols are there in the opening scene of this chapter and the shooting scene?  When does Atticus see well?  What reasons can you think of that Harper Lee might have had for having him break his glasses in the mad-dog scene?
3.  Miss Maudie says, “I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things.  I guess he decided he wouldn’t shoot till he had to, and he had to today.”  What other advantages does Atticus have?  Does he use them when doesn’t “have to”?  Do you think it’s civilized to deny your gifts?

Journal Question

What is the bravest thing that you have ever done?  What characteristics make a person courageous?

Knowledge Questions

1. What makes the children hate and fear Mrs. Dubose?
2. What two comments specifically infuriate Jem to the point that he can’t control his temper?
3. What does Jem do to get revenge?
4. What is his punishment?
5. What did Mrs. Dubose vow to do before she died?

Analysis Questions

1. What exactly is a “nigger-lover?”  Does it really not mean anything as Atticus claims?  According to Maycomb, why is it such a sin?  (Remember the historical time and place.)
2. When the narrator uses irony, she means something different from what she says.  Francis tells Scout that he got just what he asked for for Christmas.  What does Scout really mean when she says that “Francis had requested a pair of knee-pants, a red leather booksack, five shirts, and an untied bow tie.”
3. Explain Mrs. Dubose’s use of the alarm clock.
4. What type of courage does Mrs. Dubose teach the children?  What other events in the novel can you compare and/or contrast to this act of courage?
5. Why doesn’t Atticus tell the children about Mrs. Dubose’s motives before her death?  How might Jem have behaved had he known – and what would he have failed to learn as a result?

Journal Question

Has anyone ever insulted one of your parents?  How did he react?

Knowledge Questions

1. Why doesn’t Dill plan to come to Maycomb this summer?
2. What is the purpose of this Sunday’s collection at First Purchase African Methodist Episcopal Church?
3. Why are Jem and Scout so welcome in this church?
4. Why can’t Helen Robinson get work?
5. What do the children notice about Calpurnia’s behaviour in her church community?

Analysis Questions

1. What meaning of the cartoon in the Montgomery Advertiser doesn’t Scout understand?  Why does Harper Lee keep inserting these incidents where Scout misses the full meaning of an event she witnesses or a remark she hears?
2. Why did Cal take extra care going over the children’s clothing before going to her church?  How were Jem and Scout treated there?
3. At church, Scout discovers that Cal spoke one way to her black friends at church, and another way when she worked at the Finch’s.
(a) How did she explain why she changed her dialect like that?
(b) Do you agree with her reasoning?

Journal Question

Is there any place in your life where you speak differently than you do to your friends? Have you ever used different ways of speaking with different people?

Knowledge Questions

1. Why has Aunt Alexandra come?
2. Why does Aunt Alexandra get angry with Atticus?
3. What does Atticus tell the children about being Finches?

Analysis Questions

1. In the paragraph beginning, “There was indeed a caste system in Maycomb…”, the narrator describe the system of class division which existed in Maycomb. Describe the origins of such a saying.  What types of problems does this system create?
2. Why didn’t Scout like having Aunt Alexandra live with them?  How would you feel?  Why didn’t Scout admit how she felt to Atticus?  What did she mean when she said that “I said that I would like it (Aunty’s coming to visit) very much, which was a lie, but one must lie under certain circumstances, and at all times when one can’t do anything about them.”
3. How does Aunt Alexandra change the family?  More specifically, how does she change Atticus?
4. As in the incident with Uncle jack, Scout teaches an adult something in this chapter.  What do you think Atticus learns?
5. In the closing line of Chapter 13, the narrator states: “I know now what he was trying to do, but Atticus was only a man.  It takes a woman to do that kind of work.”  Explain the quotation then argue its truth or falsity.

Journal Question

When is it acceptable to lie?  Defend your response with a logical argument for or against lying.

Knowledge Questions

1. When Aunt Alexandra finds out that Jem and Scout have attended Cal’s church, what does she want Atticus to do about it?
2. “Then [Jem] rose and broke the remaining code of our childhood.”  What new violation causes Scout to make this comment?  What earlier breach of the childhood code can you remember?
3. What solution does Atticus offer to the problem of Dill’s presence?

Analysis Questions

1. What do you think of Atticus’s rule:  “You mind Jem whenever he can make you”?  What problems might it cause?  What advantages do such rules have?
2. Dill’s answer to the question, “Why do you reckon Boo Radley’s never run off?”  is only partial.  Why do you think he’s never run off?  Try for a more complete response than Dill’s; consider all you know of Boo’s life.
3. How is Dill like a mockingbird?
4. Explain the purpose of Dill’s character in the novel.

Journal Question

Why is it sometimes easier to go along with the group than to stand on your own?  Have you ever stood alone against a group of people with whom you disagreed?  How did you feel?

or

Have you ever stood up for someone?  Why did you choose to stand up for them?  Describe the situation, what led to it, and how it was resolved.

Knowledge Questions

1. Why have the neighbors gathered in the Finches’ front yard?
2. Who is Mr. Underwood?
3. Where do the children find Atticus at ten o’clock on Sunday?
4. What is the mob’s intention?
5. How does Scout manage to end the danger?  What effect does she have on the mob?
6. How does the author describe the Maycomb jail?  Read the description a second time and try to visualize the jail.
7. At the end of the chapter, who do we hear from for the first time in the novel?
8. What has Mr. Underwood been doing during the mob scene?

Analysis Questions

1. Analyze Atticus’s conversation with his neighbors.  What verbal “weapons” does he try to use?
2. Think about the crown scene.
a. What’s really happening when Atticus moves back toward the porch and the crowd draws in?
b. What is Jem thinking at this point?
c. What is Atticus thinking?
d. What is the crowd thinking?
3. Atticus gently reminds Jem, “No son, those were our friends.”  What error is Jem in danger of committing that Atticus refuses to commit?  What does the whole episode foreshadow about the “nightmare” ahead?

Journal Question

For submission to teacher:
What is prejudice?
(a) Brainstorm the word prejudice coming up with at least ten words or ideas that relate to prejudice.
(b) Write your own definition of prejudice based on your brainstorm using proper grammar and sentence structure. This definition of prejudice must be at least six sentences long.
(c) Why is prejudice wrong?

Knowledge Questions

1.  In the eyes of the community, what is Dolphus Raymond’s problem?  Why do so many people dislike him?
2.  Why doesn’t Miss Maudie go to church?
3.  What fact about Atticus’s defense of Tom Robinson does Scout learn from the Idlers’ Club?
4.  Where do the children sit for the trial?  What does this tell you? (List two or three things.)
5.  What was Judge Taylor like?

Analysis Questions

1.  Sensory details are those that appeal to our senses (sight, sound, hearing, taste, and touch).  Reread the description of the courthouse (p. 162) and point out some of the sensory details that bring the description to life.
2.  Scout says that “The full meaning of the night’s events hit [her] and she began crying.”  Reread the preceding paragraphs.  What parallels has she seen between the mad-dog and the mob scenes?
3.  Try to explain why Braxton Underwood, who “despises Negroes,” would protect Atticus from a mob that wanted to lynch a black person accused of raping a white woman.
4.  In what ways did Scout and Jem make Mr. Cunningham stand in Atticus’s shoes?
5.  What makes a “mixed child” “real sad”?  What does this tell you about Maycomb and society?  Why does Lee have Scout ask, “Well how do you know we ain’t Negroes?”

Journal Question

What is “White Trash”?  Have you ever heard the term used before?  What does it mean? Explain.

Knowledge Questions

1.  What was the first point Atticus tries to make in court?
2.  During the discussion of Mayella’s injuries, what key fact seems important to Atticus?
3.  What detail in the description of the Ewell cabin makes the reader guess that perhaps Mayella is different from the rest of her family?
4. How does Atticus establish the fact that Mr. Ewell is left-handed?  Why do you suppose this fact is important?

Analysis Questions

1. Based on his comments and behaviour in court, write a character description of Bob Ewell.
2. At one point Bob Ewell comments that the “nest [of black families] down yonder” is “dangerous to live around ‘sides devaluin’ [his] property.”  What is ironic about this? Note the grain of truth in the comment.  How does this make the statement even more ironic?
3. What is a social class?  List the different classes of people within our society and come up with a brief definition of each.

Journal Question

One of the most obvious class distinction which exists in our society is the difference between the very rich and the very poor.  How do class divisions effect our society?  Is there any relationship between class and race?  Explain.

Knowledge Questions

1. Why does Mayella Ewell break into tears at the beginning of her testimony?
2. Of what does Mayella accuse Tom?  What is her version of what happened?
3. What is Mayella’s attitude towards everyone in the courtroom?
4. What makes Mayella think Atticus is mocking her?  What does this tell you about her?
5. What dramatic fact do we learn about Tom Robinson at the end of Mayella’s testimony?
6. Atticus is trying to get Mayella to make a confession.  What does he want her to admit?

Analysis Questions

1. Why doesn’t Mayella have friends, or even quite know what it would mean to have a friend?  (Keep in mind her situation within her own family, her family’s place within the town, and the town itself.)
2. Why doesn’t Mayella confess the truth?  Again, consider all the circumstances of her life and the social context in which she must continue to live.  Think about the description of the Ewell home life which is given in the novel.

Journal Question

Do you have the same rights as a teen that adults have?  How does this make you feel?  What laws apply to teenagers that do not apply to adults?  How are teenagers treated differently within our society than adults?  Think of both the positive and the negative.  What changes should be made?  Make a list of at least three things that you like or dislike about the way our Canadian society treats teens.

Knowledge Questions

1. According to Tom’s story, when did he “bust up the chiffarobe”?
2. On the day of Tom’s “crime,” where were the seven Ewell children?
3. When Mr. Ewell arrived on the scene, what did he see through the window that infuriated him?
4. Who is Link Deas?  What comment does he add to the proceedings?
5. What two points does Mr. Gilmer try to make in cross-examining Tom?

Analysis Questions

1. As Tom gives his testimony, Scout compares Mayella to several other people she has recently learned to understand.  To whom does she compare Mayella and why?
2. “Nobody liked Tom’s answer” to the question of why he helped Mayella for no pay.
a. Why do you think Mr. Gilmer was so angry at Tom for feeling sorry for Mayella?
b. Why would this attitude itself almost constitute a crime in Maycomb?
c. What might be the long term result if this type of attitude became common in Maycomb?
3. Dill’s sensitivity is foreshadowed in the incident with the turtle (Chapter 1).  Find that section and reread it.
a. Why does Dill start to cry in Chapter 19?
b. What similarities can you find between what’s happening in the courtroom and what Dill sees as cruelty to the turtles?

Journal Question

Imagine you are a lawyer asked to defend someone that you know is guilty of murder.  How would you feel about defending someone you know is guilty?  Does that person still have the right to a fair trial?
or
Imagine you are a lawyer defending someone you know is innocent.  What do you do when that person is found guilty by a jury in a court of law?

Chapter 20

Knowledge Questions

1. Why does Mr. Dolphus Raymond pretend to be drunk?
2. Why isn’t he willing to let the children in on his secret?
3. What does Atticus say is the “worst thing you can do”?
4. What “crime” does Atticus say Mayella feels guilt for?
5. What “facts about Negroes” does Mr. Ewell rely on to make the jury bring in a guilty verdict?

Analysis Questions

1. Why is this chapter included in the novel?
2. Connect Atticus’s statement about “cheating a coloured man” with the title of the book.
3. Mayella has committed crimes against Tom and against the state (false accusation, lying under oath, even “murder” of an innocent man) because she is ashamed of breaking a “code” and “tempting a Negro.”  What’s the difference between a law and a code?  In your opinion, which is more powerful?
4. What does Atticus find wrong with the idea that all men are created equal – and what does he think is right about it?
6. When Atticus says, “this is as simple as black and white,” what does he mean?

Journal Question

Are laws ever wrong?  Can you think of an example of a law that you disagree with?  Why are you opposed to it?  How would changing that law make our country a better place to live?

Knowledge Questions

1. Before the verdict, Reverend Sykes tells Jem not to be confident his father would win.  Why didn’t the Reverend expect Atticus to win?
2. Why has Cal come to court?
3. How long was the jury out?
4. What is the significance of the length of the jury’s deliberation?
5. How does Scout know that Tom has not been acquitted even before the jury reports?
6. What happens as Atticus leaves the courtroom?

Analysis Questions

1. On the last page of Part I, Atticus tells the children that he wants them “to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.”  In what way is courage, in this case, sometimes like a man with an empty gun?

Journal Question

How did you feel when the people in the balcony stand up out of respect for Atticus?  Why do they stand up for Atticus?  How is losing a battle when you know you’re right better than winning a battle when you know you are wrong?  Have you ever lost this type of battle?  What happened?  What was the outcome?

Knowledge Questions

1. What does Atticus find in the kitchen on the morning after the trial?
2. After the trial, why did Miss Maudie bake a large cake and only two small ones?  How did this make Jem feel?
3. What is the feeling among the white neighbors (Maudie excluded) on Atticus’s defeat?
4. What has Dill decided to be when he grows up?  Why?
5. What is Bob Ewell’s response to the verdict?

Analysis Questions

1. Explain why “It’s not time to worry yet.”
2. After commenting to Alexandria about his aunt’s alcoholism, Dill asks, “Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?”  Is telling the truth really cynical?  When might telling the truth appear cynical?
3. What does Jem mean by his “caterpillar in a cocoon” image?
4. How does Aunt Alexandra react to her brother’s defeat?  What does it show you about her?

Journal Question

It has often been argued that childhood was “invented” in this century and that our belief in the “innocence” of children as something important that must be protected is just a sentimental fad.  What are the advantages of protecting children from evil, the advantage of helping them to see evil clearly, and the advantages of letting events just take their course (list three of each).

Can you think of anything that you have found out recently that your parents kept from you as a child in order to “protect” you?  How did it make you feel when you found out the truth.

Knowledge Questions

1. At the beginning of chapter 23, the children worried.  What are they worried about?
2. Where is Tom Robinson in this chapter?
3. How does Atticus define “trash”?  How does Aunt Alexandra?
4. Why does Aunt Alexandra not want Walter Cunningham in the house, even though the Cunninghams are admittedly “good folks”?
5. List the categories in Jem’s social hierarchy – the four kinds of folks in the world.  What kinds of folks are in Scout’s hierarchy?

Analysis Questions

1. What does Atticus expect Jem to learn if he “stand[s] in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute”?  If he won, why is Ewell so angry?
2. Jem says we have to do away with juries.  Why? What alternative does Atticus suggest?
3. Atticus shows prejudice in his discussion of women on juries.  What stereotypes does he have of women?  How do you feel about this lapse in Atticus’s usual reliance on pure reason?
4. According to Jem, what puts someone in one social category or another?  Think hard about this theory.  What are the problems with this theory?

Journal Question

How does our society treat women differently than it treats men?  The 1930s view was that women should be protected from the evils of the world that surrounds them.  Does society owe it to women to shelter them?  Should we expect women to be brave, or is it acceptable for women to be timid?  Has there been a change in the way society treats women?  Is the modern treatment of women better or worse than the “protection” of women that existed in the past?  Compare the treatment of women in the past to the treatment of children.  What problems do you see when you make this comparison?  Who controls and dominates society when women are “protected”?

Chapter 24

Knowledge Questions

1. What happened to Tom?
2. What does the business part of the missionary society consist of?
3. At the tea, what was it that Aunty was silently thanking Miss Maudie for?
4. Why does Scout prefer the world of men to the world in which “fragrant ladies rocked slowly, fanned gently, and drank cool water”?
5. Who are the “hypocrites” Mrs. Merriweather mentions?  Why does she consider them hypocrites?
6. What news does Atticus bring to Aunt Alexandra, Maudie, and Scout?

Analysis Questions

1. Would things have been different for Tom if Atticus had promised to get him off?  Why didn’t Atticus do so?
2. Explain the basic irony of the Missionary Society’s meeting for the betterment of conditions for “those poor Mrunas.”
3. What irony is there in Mrs. Merriweather’s insistence that Helen Robinson be forgiven?
4. What does Maudie mean by the people with “background”?

Journal Question

Many feel that the basis philosophy of the Canadian justice system is that “it is better if ten guilty men go free than if one innocent man is imprisoned.”  This means that if an error is made, it should be made in the favour of the person being tried.  It also assumes that a person is innocent until proven guilty.  How would this philosophy apply to Tom Robinson?  In what ways was Tom guilty before he even went to trial?  What evidence was there that Tom would be found guilty long before the trial began?

Knowledge Questions

1. What causes Scout to comment that Jem was acting more like a girl every day?  What definition of “girl” does this imply?
2. Why didn’t Jem want Scout to kill the caterpillar?
3. How does Scout learn about Helen’s reaction to the news of her husband’s death?
4. How is the theme of hurting defenseless insects continued in the way Dill described Tom’s wife, and Mr. Underwood’s description of Tom’s death?
5. Mr. Ewell said Tom’s death meant “one down and about two more to go.”  What does he mean?

Analysis Questions

1. What about the escape attempt does Maycomb think “typical of a nigger”?  List.
2. What does Scout see clearly for the first time when she reads Underwood’s claim that Tom’s death was “senseless killing”?  What had she thought prior to reading the editorial?

Journal Question

Mr. Underwood’s editorial states that it was simply “a sin to kill cripples.”  Characters in To Kill a Mockingbird discuss sin on numerous occasions.  What is sin?  Brainstorm the word sin (at least ten words or ideas) and then come up with a definition of sin.  Most importantly, answer this question:  How are sins punished?

Knowledge Questions

1. Although she thought it had escaped his notice, Scout learns in this chapter that Atticus has known of one of her “crimes” for a long time.  Which one?
2. At school, Scout’s class talks about Hitler.  What is important about Miss Gates’ lesson on democracy?
3. What has Scout overheard that confuses her about Miss Gates’ view of Hitler?

Analysis Questions

1. What is odd about the question, “What reasonable recluse wants children peeping through his shutters?”  Why do you think Lee chose the word reasonable?
2. Why is Hitler included in the story?  What was going on in Germany in 1935?
3. “Over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody.  Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced.  Pre-ju-dice … There are no better people in the world than the Jews, and why Hitler doesn’t think so is a mystery to me.”  Name at least two things that are wrong with this statement.
4. Jem reacts furiously to Scout’s question about Miss Gates’ remark at the trial.  What do you think the trial meant to him that it did not mean to Scout?

Journal Questions

Answer each of the following sections.  Your response should be at least two paragraphs long.

Fate is the philosophic and religious belief that human destiny (what happens in our lives) is predetermined and cannot be changed.   Do you believe in fate?  Why or why not?  What evidence is there in your life that fate does or does not exist?
Some religions believe in Predestination.  In Christianity, predestination is the teaching that whether a person goes to heaven or hell, is predetermined by God before they are born and cannot be changed.  Do you think we are predestined?  If you believe that we are not predestined, what do we have to do to get to heaven?  If you believe that we are predestined, why should we act kindly towards one another – after all our fate is already decided for us?

Knowledge Questions

1. Who does Bob Ewell blame for the loss of the WPA job?
2. What happened at Judge Taylor’s house?
3. What two services does Link Deas perform for Helen Robinson because he “felt right bad about the way things turned out?”
4. What event has been added to the fall social calendar in Maycomb?
5. What is Scout’s Halloween costume?  What are its chief drawbacks?

Analysis Questions

1. What is the purpose of Chapter 28, in the grand scheme of the novel?
2. What does Aunt Alexandra mean when she says, “Somebody just walked over my grave?”  Why is this included?  (There are two reasons.  One reason relates to the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird, and the other relates to the theme of the story.)
3. Reread the last sentence of this chapter.  What other long journeys have the two children taken together?  How might their definition of a long journey have changed since Chapter 1?

Journal Questions

Is it acceptable to kill someone in self-defense?  Why?  Is it ever acceptable to kill a person?  Where do you draw the line?  If you are being attacked with a knife is it okay to shoot and kill your attacker?  What if you have the ability to just shoot that person in the leg and stop the attack?  Is it still acceptable to shoot and kill them?

Knowledge Questions

1. Who scares the Finch children on the way to the pageant?
2. How does Scout’s performance go?
3. Why does Scout walk home from the play in her costume?
4. What is the first clue the children have that they are not alone on their way home?
5. Who are the “four people under the tree?”
6. How does Jem get home?
7. What questions does Scout ask again and again?
8. Who is the children’s attacker?  How does he die?

Analysis Questions

1. Jem “gallantly” walks Scout to the pageant, carrying her costume.  As they walk across the school-yard, they discuss Boo and comment that “Haints, Hot Steams… vanished with our years.”  Above them a mockingbird sings.  What is the effect of all these details on the reader?
2. “The man who brought Jem in … he was some countryman I did not know.”  Why is it important that Scout doesn’t identify the rescuer?

Journal Questions

Is it ever okay to lie?  When?  Have you ever lied to protect someone or to keep one of your friends from getting into trouble?  What were the circumstances?  How did you feel?
 

Knowledge Questions

1. What unexpected advantages did the ham outfit supply?
2. What does Boo really look like?  (Give direct quotes with page numbers.)

Analysis Questions

1. What character traits does Aunt Alexandra show in reaction to the crisis?  List proof (quote and page numbers) for each one.
2. What character traits does Heck Tate show in reaction to crisis?  List proof (quote and page numbers) for each one.

Journal Question

What does Justice mean to you?  Do you believe more in the Bible’s Old Testament philosophy of “an eye for an eye”, or Jesus’ idea that you must turn the other cheek?  Explain why you hold this belief.

Knowledge Questions

1. Who killed Bob Ewell?  How did it actually happen?
2. What was the murder weapon?
3. What does the switchblade Heck Tate uses for demonstration have to do with the entire situation?

Analysis Questions

1. During the chapter, what ladylike things does Scout do to make Boo feel less uncomfortable?  (List at least three things.)
2. [a] What does Atticus think happened out there in the dark?
[b] What does he think Heck Tate is trying to conceal by claiming Ewell fell on his knife?
[c] Who is Heck Tate really protecting?
[d] Do you think it’s right to “let the dead bury the dead”?
3. After Heck Tate leaves, Atticus must explain the lie to Scout.
[a] Why is it easier than he expects?  (Think of the whole book when you answer this question.)
[b] What is the one word used by Heck Tate in the conversation on the porch that makes it easy for Scout to see the necessity of the lie?
4. In Chapter 5, Miss Maudie says, “Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets.”  Later in the novel, Atticus says, “I can’t live one way in town and another way in my house.”  What does he say and do in this chapter to prove that he was not a hypocrite?

Journal Questions

[a] Have you ever met someone for a brief moment and had it change your entire life?
[b] Write a fictional letter to a person who has saved your life without identifying him or herself.  What emotions do you feel towards that person?  How can you thank them?  What do you want to say to them?

Knowledge Questions

1. Describe the manner in which Scout walks Boo home.
2. What do you learn about the plot of The Gray Ghost?

Analysis Questions

1. Analyze the meaning of the following passages.  What does each one mean?  Remember to think about the entire story when you answer this question.
[a] Boo:  “ ‘Will you take me home?’  He almost whispered it, in the voice of a child afraid of the dark.”
[b] Scout: “I would lead him through our house, but I would never lead him home.”
2. Scout walking Boo home is a very important event in the novel.
[a] How did Scout act when she took Boo home?
[b] How did she feel?
[c] How do you suppose he felt?
3. As Scout looked out from the Radley porch, she regretted the children never gave Boo anything in return for his gifts.  Actually, they did give Boo something.  What was it?
4. How does the point of view change as Scout is commenting on the view from Boo’s porch and during her fantasy description of Boo’s view?
5. Why do you think that Scout never saw Boo again?  Would it have been a better ending if she had become his friend?
6. Atticus says that he sometimes feels he has been a total failure as a parent.
[a] Giving at least three examples from the novel off the top of your head, contradict or support his remark.
[b] If Atticus were your father, which of his qualities would you like most?
[c] Which of Atticus’ qualities would you dislike most?

Journal Question

What are last chapters in a novel supposed to do?  List the ways (at least 5) in which the final chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird fulfills or fails to fulfill your expectations.

If Harper Lee was to write a sequel to this book, what would you predict would happen to each of the following characters (write at least one paragraph – six sentences for each):
  [a] Boo Radley
  [b] Scout
  [c] Jem
  [d] Atticus
  [e] One other character of your choice.
Be creative, but keep in mind what you have read about these characters.  Do not stretch their stories beyond belief.