When you were six What did you look like? Who was your favorite person? What thing did you like to do best? What did you like to eat best? Who was your hero? What was your biggest fear? What was your hope for the future ?

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

Information for this Power Point came from www.neabigread.org , www.shmoop.com, and the Town of Knightdale, NC

Biography Born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama Mother was Frances Cunningham Finch Father was Amasa Lee, a lawyer, who hoped

she would one day be a lawyer also Lee grew up as a tomboy who fought a lot;

she and Scout could have been good friends Neighbor was future author Truman Capote Moved to New York after college and

eventually wrote To Kill a Mockingbird which was published in 1960 and was on the best-seller list for 84 weeks

Writing the novel Lee’s father had unsuccessfully defended a

black man and his son in a charge of murdering a white shopowner

The trial of the Scottsboro Boys occurred during the 1930s, trial of nine black young men accused of raping two white women

These incidents among others stirred Lee’s social conscience

The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 TKM was made into a movie in 1962

Format of the novel Story is told as a flashback from an adult

Scout and begins by telling readers that when Jem was 13 he broke his arm

The novel has two main plot lines which come together by the end1. Seeing “Boo” Radley, which highlights a theme

of tolerance2. Atticus and the case of Tom Robinson, which

highlights the theme of injustice

1930s Times hard for all during the Great Depression 25% of population was unemployed at the worst

part Scottsboro Boys Trial 1931-1937 (Lee was four

when this began) Jim Crow Laws:

Black curfew Segregated public areas Mixed relationships/marriages illegal Juries of all white men Laws inconsistently enforced Black man accused of assaulting white woman would

be presumed guilty, not innocent

Truman Capote- “Dill” Lee and Capote became friends in

kindergarten and were next door neighbors Her father gave them an old typewriter which

they used to write their own stories In third grade he moved to New York City to

live with his mother and stepfather but returned to Alabama in the summer

Mockingbirds “but remember it’s a sin to kill a

mockingbird” Atticus Mockingbirds mimic other birds and insects

usually at a fast rate, they can remember up to 200 songs

Main purpose is to make music Associated with what is innocent and

harmless In the novel, killing a mockingbird is

“associated with the sinful, pointless and cruel”

Small town life The story is set in a small, Southern town in

the years following the Stock Market Crash of 1929. While most Southern, small towns were peaceful during this time, the people who lived there were often very poor and had little in the way of luxuries. Also, that peace was often kept at the expense of certain groups of people in the communities: the very poor and African-Americans

Jim Crow laws were segregating white and black, sometimes violently. Racial prejudice and sometimes hatred were a part of everyone’s lives.

Knightdale Our town was a very small town in the

Depression, populated mostly by farmers with most of the town centered in what are now Main St. and First Avenue.

Other views of Knightdale from the early 20th century

First fire truck

Downtown fire

Picking beans outside of town

The original Knightdale High School

Train depot

First town well

Creating six-year-old you Color your hair and clothes to look like you would

have looked at 6. Create a t-shirt that will explain who your

hero/favorite person was: add a slogan, name, design Cut out your “body” and recycle the extra paper Use the magazines to find your favorite food. Cut it

out and glue it in your right hand Draw or cut out a representation of your biggest fear

and glue that in your left hand Glue the body to a piece of paper which was your

favorite color at 6 On an index card write “I hope…” filling in your hope

for the future. Glue the index card to your paper Put your name at the bottom