Friday, January 21, 2005

To Kill a Mockingbird

In the spring, I will teach To Kill a Mockingbird to a bunch of sophomores at Roseville High School. (I will also teach Inherit the Wind, Julius Caesar, a research unit, and Life is Beautiful with the same 10th graders and a Journalism class with 11th/12th graders as an elective.)

(Here's my opinion on TKAM--I don't think it's a great text for 10th graders... I think it is more appropriate for the middle school curriculum, but who's to argue? I was assigned it officially in 9th grade Advanced Language Arts, though we studied it in 7th and 8th grades as well. Instead of reading it in Mrs Miller's class, I read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers--she had me take the quizes and exams for TKAM (I couldn't recall the small details of the plot, so I didn't do so well) and write up my notes as well as give an oral presentation. In retrospect, I probably should have just read TKAM again, but I was (and still am) one of those stubborn students who always wants to be a little different. Anyway. My opinion is that 10th graders are generally ready for a more challenging text where the characters are a bit more complex and the situation isn't so didactic.)

However, I think that TKAM is a wonderfully teachable text and has a lot of great moments that students need to learn about. Since I am still stuck in the Twin Cities because of a big old blizzard (well, at least, that's what it's supposed to end up being--snowstorm, no less), I thought I would throw up some of the things I have collected thus far. I'm just finishing up a unit (the goal is to be done by the end of the month anyway), so I thought I would put up what I have thus far. I made a Life is Beautiful unit and put it up on the web (check out the link--that's the unit).

Here are a few of the links I will explore in the next few days to beef up my TKAM unit:

Student Survival Guide
TKAM and Harper Lee: links
SparkNotes
How to Kill a Mockingbird (ha ha ha)
TKAM and Setting
SCORE: Teacher Guide
TKAM: Film Guide
NovelGuide
The Learning Page: Teacher Lesson Plan
Classic Notes
ThinkQuest: TKAM then and now
A Homework Study Guide
Barron's BookNotes



I will put my own notes on my unit tomorrow. For now, I'll just leave it at these links and go to bed.

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