To Kill A Mockingbird

1. To Kill A Mockingbird

2. Discussion Questions • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3yJomUhs0g • What did you notice about the film? What was happening? • What critical aspects come to mind in regards to the video? • Why do you think Dr Seuss wrote this story? What message do you think he was trying to get across?

3. Harper Lee • Born in Alabama in 1926 • To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 • Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s • Instant success and won the Pulitzer Prize

4. Jim Crow Laws

5. Background • Between 1877 and 1960, after the American Civil War most states in the South passed an anti-African American legislation. • In daily life, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. • These unwritten laws, or conventions, discriminated against African Americans with concern to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities.

6. Background • Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that Whites were the Chosen people, Blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation. • The Jim Crow laws were eventually repealed in 1954.

7. How Long Were They in Place? • The segregation of blacks started from the 1830's through the 1950's. • Jim Crow was the name for a system of laws and customs that imposed racial segregation and discrimination on African Americans from the end of the Civil War until the 1950's.

8. What Was Their Purpose? • Purpose? • The purpose of the Jim Crow Laws was to segregate the whites and African Americans and limit the African Americans activities. • When an African American did everyday normal things such as using a public restroom or going to see a movie they had to use the coloured section or area. • These coloured areas were usually not as nice as the white areas

9. Examples of Jim Crow Laws: • Blacks and Whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, Whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them. • Under no circumstance was a black male to offer to light the cigarette of a White female – that gesture implied intimacy. • Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended Whites.

10. Steson Kennedy, author of Jim Crow Guide offered these `simple` rules: • Never assert or even intimate that a White person is lying. • Never impute dishonourable intentions to a White person. • Never suggest that a White person is from an inferior class. • Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence. • Never curse a White person. • Never laugh derisively at a White person. • Never comment upon the appearance of a White female. 1 Kennedy, Steson. Jim Crow Guide: The Way it Was. Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1959-1990, pp, 216-117

11. Literary Theories: A Sampling of Critical Lenses • Literary theories were developed as a means to understand the various ways people read texts. • All literary theories are lenses through which we can see texts. There is nothing to say that one is better than another or that you should read according to any of them, but it is sometimes fun to “decide” to read a text with one in mind because you often end up with a whole new perspective on your reading.

12. The Great Depression • The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II • Post-War Symptoms • Lack of Spending • Black Tuesday October 29, 1929

13. 3 Critical Lenses 1. Racism • To Kill a Mockingbird is a text that at the core challenges racial discrimination. • The subject of racism has been a lively topic for critical debate since approximately the 1950s, with scholars examining the treatment of various kinds of discrimination based on race, religion, or gender in literary works—both past and present—as well as in the attitudes of the writers themselves. In some cases racism is a prominent, or even the chief theme, while in other works critics have revealed racist attitudes that serve as underlying assumptions, but may not be immediately evident to the reader.

14. 3 Critical Lenses 2. Marxism • “Marxist criticism: An approach to literature that focuses on the ideological content of a work—its explicit and implicit assumptions and values about matters such as culture, race, class, and power. • Marxist criticism, based largely on the writings of Karl Marx, typically aims at not only revealing and clarifying ideological issues but also correcting social injustices. • Some Marxist critics use literature to describe the competing socioeconomic interests that too often advance capitalist interests such as money and power rather than socialist interests such as morality and justice.

15. Marxism Continued • They argue that literature and literary criticism are essentially political because they either challenge or support economic oppression. • Because of this strong emphasis on the political aspects of texts, Marxist criticism focuses more on the content and themes of literature than on its form.” • This school of critical theory focuses on power and money in works of literature. Who has the power and/or money? Who does not? What happens as a result?

16. 3 Critical Lenses 3. Gender A gender critic sees cultural and economic disabilities in a “patriarchal” society that have hindered or prevented women from realizing their creative possibilities and women’s cultural identification as a merely negative object, or “Other,”. • However texts also follow the journey of both males and females and in many texts that challenge gender roles, males and females growth is presented in contrast to one another. There There are several assumptions and concepts held in common by most gender critics:

17. Gender Continued 1. Our civilization is pervasively patriarchal. 2. The concepts of “gender” are largely, if not entirely, cultural ideas, created by the enduring patriarchal biases of our civilization. 3. This patriarchal ideology also serves to select those writings that have been considered great literature. Such works lack independent female role models, are implicitly addressed to male readers, and leave the woman reader an alien outsider or else solicit her to identify against herself by assuming male values and ways of perceiving, feeling, and acting. 4. This is somewhat like Marxist criticism, but instead of focusing on the relationships between the classes it focuses on the relationships between the genders. Under this theory you would examine the patterns of thought, behaviour, values, and power in relations between the sexes.

18. Reading a Novel: The Activity • Activity Once the class has been divided up into groups they will rotate through the 3 lenses, doing the following activity within the lenses they are assigned: Each group will fill in 1 quotation and reflection & analysis into their collective Double-Entry Journal at the end of each chapter or every second chapter depending on the content within each chapter

19. Example Journal

20. Reading a Novel: The Activity • This Double-Entry Journal will contain a quotation reflecting each group’s designated lens (Racism, Gender, or Marxist). • A discussion regarding the quotations selected and other points related to the lenses will accompany each Journal activity.

21. Options for Final Assignment: • There will be choice in the final assignment for students. Each assignment is related to the Three Lenses involving Critical Literacy that we have been studying. 1. Marxist: • The Marxist perspective pays a lot of attention to the social structures that give power to different groups in a community. Identify some of the “social groups” that are represented in To Kill A Mockingbird. Plot some of the characters who represent these groups on the social ladder ranging from Least to Most Power. Explain why each group has the least or Most power and include references from the novel to support your reasoning.

22. Options for Final Assignment: 2. Gender: • Students will be asked to choose one of the following topics related to gender and are asked to write an essay in that topic. • a.) Analyze Scout’s transition throughout the text. How has she changed? Why has she changed? Do you think that change was for better or worse?

23. Options for Final Assignment: • b.) How are women as a whole portrayed in To Kill a Mockingbird? Do you see women being portrayed differently today? If so how and why do you think things have changed or have not changed? • c.) Compare and contrast Miss Maudie Atkinson and Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. Consider how two women who have grown up in the same town could have such different views. • d.) How has Jem grown throughout the novel? How is his upbringing different from Scouts if at all? Does he have certain advantages in life that scout doesn’t because he is a boy?

24. Options for Final Assignment: 3. Racism: • Perform a dramatic scene or tableau depicting a scene in the novel that is inherently racist. Then write a 1-2 page paper describing why you think this scene is racist. Also think about how you felt playing a racist character or a character who is being discriminated against. How did that make you feel? Do you think acting it out helped you understand the book or the characters better?