Contextual Framework: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Book

How would living within a system of Jim Crow laws and being surrounded by groups like the KKK affect a young person of any race? How do gender expectations shape all of us, regardless of our gender? Where do you see aspects of Truman Capote’s own life and personality in the character of Dill? How does economic status impact the way the citizens of Maycomb treat one another?

Authors write about what they know, their experiences, and the world in which they live. Context-based questions give students the framework for a deeper analysis and understanding of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Resource Features:

• Six discussion activities
• Ten text analysis activities
• Alignment to Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

Each Discussion Activity:

• Provides background and a discussion question
• Includes multiple resource texts (informational)
• Presents related excerpts from the novel
• Is three to four reproducible pages

Each Text Analysis Activity:

• Provides a quotation from the novel
• Presents three differentiated prompts that pertain to the quotation
• Contains a personal reflection prompt, a critical-thinking prompt, and a literary analysis prompt
• Is one reproducible page

©2017. High school. Reproducible. 40 pages.

Book Download: PDF. We recommend Foxit PDF for viewing or editing PDFs.

Print Book: Spiral-bound. 8 x 11 inches.

About the Author

Johanna Parkhurst grew up on a small dairy farm in northern Vermont before relocating to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. She holds degrees from Albertus Magnus College and Teachers College, Columbia University, where she studied the teaching of English. She divides her time between teaching and writing, and she's published three novels for young adults in between obsessing over which lesson plan to use the next day.

Johanna loves traveling, hiking, skiing, and yelling at the TV during football and hockey season.