Collection

Teaching Mockingbird Media and Readings

Enrich your teaching of To Kill a Mockingbird with this set of videos, photographs, and readings that will help students contextualize the novel.

Published: March 14, 2016

Collection

Language

English — US

Subject

English & Language Arts

Grade

9–10

Culture & Identity
Human & Civil Rights
Racism

Overview

These materials were selected to help readers contextualize the setting and understand the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. There are videos on themes ranging from growing up in the south during the Jim Crow-era, to the history of lynching in the United States, to the role of stereotypes and bias in our culture, and on Scout's character. You can also find photos, art, and audio interviews here to help stimulate discussion and understanding of the many themes of the novel that continue to resonate today.

This collection explores issues of race, class, identity, and moral responsibility in To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. It includes:

9 videos
8 images
3 audio interviews
17 readings

Preparing to Teach

Teaching Note

Before using the resources in this collection, review our principles for educators located in the Preparing to Teach section of the main Teaching Mockingbird collection. These principles are designed to help teachers engage with the complexity of the novel and guide students through a sensitive and critical reading that encompasses the novel, the world of the novel, the world of Harper Lee, and our world today.

Lesson Plans

Video

David Cunningham, chair of the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University, explores systems of racial separation and institutionalized segregation known as Jim Crow.

Video

Paula Giddings, professor of Afro-American Studies at Smith College, discusses the history and origins of lynching.

Video

Margot Stern Strom, the founder and President Emerita of Facing History & Ourselves, describes growing up in Jim Crow-era Memphis.

Video

Claude Steele describes the idea and effects of stereotype threat in our daily lives.

Audio

In an interview with Studs Terkel, Virginia Foster Durr, a prominent American civil rights activist, reflects on life during the Great Depression, particularly the way that people on government relief felt shame and guilt over their own suffering and poverty, rather than blaming the capitalist system.

Audio

In this segment of an interview conducted by Studs Terkel, Eileen Barthe, a government relief case worker during the Great Depression, remembers an experience that caused a recipient of relief to face deep humiliation.

Audio

Studs Terkel interviews Emma Tiller, a cook who describes how African Americans would feed people who were in need during the Great Depression, without any regard to their skin color.

Reading

Read and listen to firsthand accounts of the shame, humiliation, and deprivation experienced by those who lived through the Great Depression.

Possibly related to: Negroes in the lineup for food at meal time in the camp for flood refugees, Forrest City, Arkansas.

Reading

Read excerpts of George William Hunter’s book about the now-disproved idea that traits like intelligence and morality are handed down from generation to generation.

Photograph of journal bindings in an anthropology library, showing the transition where Eugenics Quarterly was renamed to Social Biology in 1969.

Reading

Essie Favrot gives a firsthand account of working as a domestic worker for a white Southern family.

Young African American woman holding a baby

Reading

In her autobiography, Outside the Magic Circle, white southerner Virginia Foster Durr recalls how the customs of the Jim Crow South affected her seventh birthday party.

Eliza "Didy" Ridgely White, her extended family, and their servants are seen on the porch at the Bruen Villa on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island.

Reading

Deepen students' understanding of the systems of racial separation and institutionalized segregation known as Jim Crow to better grasp the time and setting of To Kill A Mockingbird.

Sign at bus station reads "Colored Waiting Room."

Reading

H. J. Williams describes what it was like to go to school and work in the segregated South.

Professor Jacob's School, African-American, students and teacher in front of school, early 1900's.

Reading

H. J. Williams, in an interview about living in the segregated South, describes when he first realized that blacks and whites were treated differently.

Reading

H. J. Williams describes what it was like to go to school and work in the segregated South.

Reading

Roosevelt Williams describes voting in segregated Alabama in the 1930s and 1940s.

Reading

Roosevelt Williams describes different jobs he held and how he moved around the segregated South to find work in the 1930s and 1940s.

A man ploughing with two horses, possibly near Featherston.

Reading

Roosevelt Williams describes his memories of interactions between races in the segregated South.

Drinking fountain on the Halifax County Courthouse (North Carolina) in April 1938. Image used in Reconstruction video series.

Reading

Roosevelt Williams shares his memories of farming cotton in segregated Alabama.

Reading

H. J. Williams, in an interview about living in the segregated South, shares a memory of a lynching that took place in Yazoo County, Mississippi.

African American man kneeling by bodies of murdered African American people. In background sign reads, "the White Liners were here."

Reading

Roosevelt Williams describes voting in segregated Alabama in the 1930s and 1940s.

Reading

Consider the nature of justice with this reading about the Scottsboro Affair in which nine black teenagers were accused of raping two white women in the 1930s.

The Scottsboro Boys with attorney Samuel Leibowitz, 1932

Reading

Authors Joseph Flora and Lucinda MacKethan describe the characteristics of the “redneck,” a specific stereotype of a poor white Southerner.

A man named Floyd Burroughs stands with four children on a wooden house porch.

Reading

Judge Learned Hand, a federal judge and legal thinker, reflects on the roles of the law and citizens’ hearts and minds in upholding liberty.

Portrait photograph of Judge Learned Hand.

Collection

Find the teaching strategies, media, and online resources referenced throughout the Teaching Farewell To Manzanar guide.

Families of Japanese ancestry awaiting the arrival of a train that will take them to Merced detention center, during the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II

Collection

Explore resources that meet the California History–Social Science Framework standards.

Four students sit in a circle in conversation. The student in the center speaks with their hands raised.

Collection

Explore resources that meet the Massachusetts History and Social Science Framework.

Students working in groups in a classroom

Lesson

Students connect the moral development of To Kill a Mockingbird's central characters to the moments in their lives that have shaped their sense of right and wrong.

Lesson

Students explore how race, class, and gender create the moral universe that the characters inhabit in To Kill a Mockingbird.

The exterior of a theatre called "Rex Theatre for Colored People."

Lesson

Students consider how Harper Lee’s decision to tell To Kill a Mockingbird through the eyes of young Scout impacts readers' understanding of the novel.

Collection

Learn how to incorporate civic education, ethical reflection and historical context into a literary exploration of Harper Lee's novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.

Lesson

Students consider what it means to be free by learning about the choices and aspirations of freedpeople immediately after Emancipation.

Black students standing outside in front of a clapboard school house

Lesson

Students learn about the violent responses to the transformation of US democracy that occurred as a result of Radical Reconstruction.

Black and white photo of the house committee

Lesson

Students examine the factors that led many northerners to turn against federal policies passed during the Reconstruction era that protected freedpeople.

A drawn picture of people crowding into the Fourth National Bank

Lesson

Students learn about the period of violence in the South from 1873-1876 and examine its role in influencing elections and ending Republican control of Southern state governments.

A picture of one hand holding down another hand on top of a gun and a pile of papers

Lesson

Students explore the legacies of the Reconstruction era today, reflect on the idea of democracy as a continuous process, and consider how they can best participate in the ongoing work of strengthening our democracy.

Demonstrators march down Pennsylvania Avenue with signs for Black Lives Matter

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Listen to #DisruptTexts founder Julia Torres about taking a critical lens to text selection in ELA classrooms.

Three students at table, working on a project

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Issues of equity and education have long existed in our country and continue to manifest today. How can writing and the power of one's voice help us respond to these disparities? Listen to writer and educator, Dr. Clint Smith, where we hear his poetry and reflections on working for justice, equity, and civic agency in our schools.

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Explore approaches to centering student voice, building authentic relationships and cultivating community with Molly Josephs, the creator of This Teenage Life, a youth-driven, story-sharing podcast that started as a school club.

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Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.

— Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

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Teaching Mockingbird Media and Readings

At a Glance

Language

Subject

Grade

Overview

About This Collection

Preparing to Teach

A Note to Teachers

Lesson Plans

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