40 Ways to Participate without Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird

The Orem Public Library is thrilled to be participating in the Big Read, a program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts meant to restore reading to the center of American culture. We want citizens of Orem of all ages to participate, and would like to encourage you and your students to be involved. This list is meant to help you involve your students in the Big Read, regardless of what grade level or subject you teach. There are ideas here that could be adapted for use in many classrooms.

1. Read To Kill a Mockingbird, and bring your copy to class so your students can see you are reading with the rest of Orem.
2. Display posters and advertisements for the Big Read in your classroom.
3. Offer incentives to students who are reading To Kill a Mockingbird.
4. Offer incentives to students who attend Big Read lectures and activities at the library.
5. Watch and review the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird with your class.
6. Use passages from To Kill a Mockingbird to compare or contrast content or style with another literary work.
7. Use passages from To Kill a Mockingbird for vocabulary, grammar and writing activities in class.
8. Compare race relations in America between those in the 1930's (when the book is set) and the 1960's (when the book was written).
9. Use passages from To Kill a Mockingbird to illustrate the changes in the law and social policy of the United States.
10. Use passages from To Kill a Mockingbird to illustrate the conflicts that led to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s.
11. Use the character of Atticus Finch to discuss civic engagement and the importance of upholding standards of equality.
12. Identify landmark Civil Rights court decisions and discuss how Atticus would respond to them.
13. Examine the ways Maycomb citizens participate in conflict resolution.
14. Read a Southern folktale and discuss what makes Southern literature unique.
15. Ask students to read about or discuss one of the real-life trials that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird (Emmett Till, the "Scottsboro Boys", etc.).
16. Discuss how the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird respond to continuity and change in their community.
17. Discuss how the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird react differently to the trial of Tom Robinson.
18. Have the students draw a picture or map of the "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama.
19. Discuss the need for fair and impartial juries.
20. Use passages from the novel to illustrate literary elements such as simile, metaphor and symbolism.
21. Have students write about events from their own childhood using Scout's memories as a model.
22. Compare and contrast the struggles faced by Tom Robinson and his family to other minorities in America (American Indians, Latinos, etc.).
23. Use Walter Cunningham and Scout Finch to contrast rural and urban living during the Great Depression.
24. Compare Scout's experience of the Great Depression with accounts of Utahns' experiences in the same time period.
25. Create a work of art based on a passage from To Kill a Mockingbird.
26. Identify the signs of abuse in the Ewell household.
27. Discuss Mrs. Dubose's morphine addiction.
28. Research the Works Progress Administration.
29. Research traditional recipes for foods mentioned in the novel (charlotte, ambrosia, crackling bread, Lane cake).
30. Develop and perform a monologue as a minor character in the novel.
31. View and discuss photographs taken during the Great Depression (e.g. photographs taken by Dorthea Lange or Walker Evans). Discuss how race and poverty are depicted in these images.
32. Adapt a scene from the novel into a screen play.
33. Design costumes for scene from the novel, researching fashions from the time.
34. Design a set for a scene from the novel.
35. View and critique the work of visual artists working during the Great Depression.
36. Create an original book cover for To Kill a Mockingbird.
37. Illustrate a scene from To Kill a Mockingbird.
38. Use passages from To Kill a Mockingbird to illustrate the conflicts between racial groups after the Civil War and through the middle of the twentieth century.
39. Compare the health of an average adult during the Great Depression and today.
40. Research segregation in the South using the Library of Congress website.