| To Kill a Mockingbird Lesson Plan |
| Lesson plan To Kill a Mockingbird � Day One � Chapters 1-5 Title Examining Prejudice Overview This lesson serves as a critical starting point for the discussion of prejudice and racism, and how those themes manifest themselves in Harper Lee�s novel. Objectives Students will be able to: ? Evaluate the presence of prejudice in contemporary society. ? Analyze why people have tendencies to demonize others who are perceived as different. ? Synthesize the above with the Finch children�s view of the character of Boo Radley. ? Write a reflective essay, incorporating all of the above elements with their own behaviors and attitudes, or past experiences with prejudice and racism. Materials To Kill a Mockingbird and paper for note-taking and essay writing. Procedures and Tasks Begin by asking students what �prejudice� means, and writing their responses on the blackboard. Some open-ended questions might be: Does prejudice have to be racial only? What other types of prejudice are there? What about prejudice against a geographical region, a certain family, or even against the way a person dresses or behaves? Why do people develop such prejudices? Wrap up this discussion with how it ties into Lee�s novel. Next, assign students to small 4- to 5-member groups for further discussion about prejudice as it is presented in chapters 1-5 of To Kill a Mockingbird. (An effective method may be to assign one chapter to each of five groups, asking them to search for examples of possible prejudice in each chapter, specifically as it relates to the character of Boo Radley.) Assign yourself to one of the groups. After small group work, initiate class discussion of chapters 1-5 by asking each of the groups to share their findings. Where possible, make connections between the text and what the class discussed in their open-ended discussion about �prejudice� that began the class period. For the remainder of the hour, ask students to get comfortable, stretch out, and begin writing a one-page reflective essay incorporating what we have discussed today with a personal experience or their own behaviors/attitudes. The essay will be due tomorrow at the beginning of the hour. Write with the students. Accommodations The basic framework of this lesson is adaptable to students of varied learning styles. Furthermore, its emphasis upon personal reflection and decontextualization promotes higher-order thinking skills. Assessment Students will be assessed on a check-plus/check/check-minus system. The intention is for this one-page essay to serve as a working draft for a final essay on To Kill a Mockingbird. |