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.

Gallery

Artist Glenn Ligon created Untitled: Four Etchings using quotations from writer Zora Neale Hurston's essay, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" and Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man.

Artist Glenn Ligon created Untitled: Four Etchings [B] using a quotation from writer Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.”

Gallery

These photographs were taken by Walker Evans in the 1930s for the Farm Security Administration of the United States Government. The government established the FSA to help document the reality and effects of the Great Depression on farmers and communities in the rural South.

A cabin where an African American family lived, in rural Hale County, Alabama during the Great Depression.

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, 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.

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, 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 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

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

Unit

This unit is designed to help students in the UK reflect on how Islamophobia manifests in contemporary society and what needs to be done to challenge it.

Lesson

Students explore the roots of Islamophobia, reflect on its human cost and its impact on those who experience it, and start thinking about the importance of standing up against Islamophobia.

Uniformed high school students read at their desks.

Lesson

Students explore Islamophobic tropes, their troubled history, their evolution and their present manifestation in further depth, and consider the harm that their circulation can cause.

Picture of students working in a classroom.

Lesson

Students reflect on how Islamophobia manifests in the media and in the entertainment industry, and the potential consequences of being exposed to Islamophobic content.

Photograph of student in uniform working on a worksheet in class

Lesson

Students learn how Islamophobia intersects with misogyny and the impact that this has on the treatment of Muslim women.

Lesson

Students reflect on the impact of Islamophobia on Muslims’ sense of belonging, consider what can be done to foster integration, and explore ways in which they and others can challenge Islamophobia.

Picture of high school students smiling.

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.

More Like This Teaching Resources Learning & Events

Facing History & Ourselves is designed for educators who want to help students explore identity, think critically, grow emotionally, act ethically, and participate in civic life. It’s hard work, so we’ve developed some go-to professional learning opportunities to help you along the way.

Professional Learning

On-Demand

Virtual

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

Professional Learning

On-Demand

Virtual

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.

Professional Learning

On-Demand

Virtual

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.

More Like This View Upcoming Events View On-Demand Events

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

— Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

Search

Search

Teaching Mockingbird Media and Readings

At a Glance

Language

Subject

Grade

Overview

About This Collection

Preparing to Teach

A Note to Teachers

Lesson Plans

You might also be interested in…

Media and Strategies for Teaching Farewell to Manzanar

Discussing Contemporary Islamophobia in the Classroom

Confronting Islamophobia

Exploring Islamophobic Tropes

Addressing Islamophobia in the Media

Understanding Gendered Islamophobia

Standing Up Against Contemporary Islamophobia

Resources for Civic Education in California

Resources for Civic Education in Massachusetts

Moral Growth: A Framework for Character Analysis

Maycomb's Ways: Setting as Moral Universe

Scout as Narrator: The Impact of Point of View

Teaching Mockingbird Media and Readings

At a Glance

Language

Subject

Grade

Overview

About This Collection

Preparing to Teach

A Note to Teachers

Save this resource for easy access later.

Lesson Plans

Videos

Understanding Jim Crow (Setting the Setting)

The Origins of Lynching Culture in the United States

Custom and Conscience: Margot Stern Strom reflects on growing up in Memphis, TN in the 1950s

How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do

Audio Interviews

Studs Terkel Interview with Virginia Foster Durr

Studs Terkel Interview with Eileen Barthe

Studs Terkel Interview with Emma Tiller

Images

Glenn Ligon's Untitled: Four Etchings

Teaching Mockingbird: Images

Readings

Firsthand Accounts of the Great Depression

Being Well Born: New Civic Biology by George William Hunter

You Worked Long Hours

The Birthday Party: Outside the Magic Circle by Virginia Foster Durr

Understanding Jim Crow

H. J. Williams Recalls Learning About the Rules of Jim Crow in Yazoo County, Mississippi

H. J. Williams Recalls Work and School In Yazoo County, Mississippi

H. J. Williams Recalls Lynching in Yazoo County, Mississippi

Roosevelt Williams Recalls Moving for Work in Alabama and Mississippi

Roosevelt Williams Recalls Learning about the Rules of Jim Crow in Alabama

Roosevelt Williams Recalls Farming During His Youth in Alabama

Roosevelt Williams Recalls Voting in Alabama

The Scottsboro Affair

The Redneck Stereotype

The Spirit of Liberty

How are you planning to use this resource?

You might also be interested in…

Media and Strategies for Teaching Farewell to Manzanar

Discussing Contemporary Islamophobia in the Classroom

Confronting Islamophobia

Exploring Islamophobic Tropes

Addressing Islamophobia in the Media

Understanding Gendered Islamophobia

Standing Up Against Contemporary Islamophobia

Resources for Civic Education in California

Resources for Civic Education in Massachusetts

Moral Growth: A Framework for Character Analysis

Maycomb's Ways: Setting as Moral Universe

Scout as Narrator: The Impact of Point of View

Unlimited Access to Learning. More Added Every Month.

Exploring ELA Text Selection with Julia Torres

Working for Justice, Equity and Civic Agency in Our Schools: A Conversation with Clint Smith

Centering Student Voices to Build Community and Agency

Inspiration, insights, & ways to get involved