To Kill a Mockingbird is the the most popular novel taught in high schools in North America. In my high school it has been taught since the 1970’s, but around 12 years ago, we had to make the decision to either invest in new copies of the book or to try something else. We decided to drop it because we had had a few students refuse to read the novel because of the “n” word and because we weren’t sure that it was the right novel for grade 9, which is where it is most commonly taught. Twelve years later we decided to reintroduce it on a trial basis in grade 10 because we were about the only school in the board that was not teaching it. Having taught it now, off and on, for over 30 years to different generations of students, here are my thoughts:
5 reasons to teach it
1. It is about discrimination, racism, cruelty and growing up-all topics that teenagers connect with.
2. It is well-written and has a pleasing, somewhat circular plot. I suspect Harper Lee had read a fair amount of Dickens and Alexandre Dumas.
3. The characters are archetypal. We love the wise father, the pitiable monster, the villain etc.
4. The narrator, Scout, is a delight. She has an ironic view of life but at the same time, is innocent. She is also a strong female role model.
5. Written at the time of the civil rights movement but set in an earlier time period, it reflects an important part of American history and exposes practices that young people may not be familiar with.
6 reasons to not teach it
1. It has an old-fashioned writing style and the vocabulary is very sophisticated. There is nothing wrong with students learning new words but it may also prevent a lot of students from understanding and connecting with the novel. The first chapter alone has at least 20 uncommon and archaic words like “flivver” “beadle” “unsullied”.
2. The characters are stereotypes especially Atticus, Bob Ewell and Tom Robinson.
3. It is about racism seen through the eyes of a white person trying not to offend too many people in 1960. In spite of the storyline, it really doesn’t expose the ugliness of racism and of the world that she describes. It’s all very benign even though Tom Robinson dies. Today’s student is used to a harsher view from both the media and their own experience. They understand what happens but don’t necessarily connect with it because it is sugar-coated in the story.
4. The book was written for adults not teenagers. We see the world through the eyes of a wise child looking back at the events. Many of my students do not see the irony in her voice because they lack either the background knowledge to recognize the references or they are not mature enough readers to appreciate it. If it has to be explained a lot, there is something missing for the reader.
5. The movie version, though dated, is very true to the novel . How many of our students have “watched” the novel and read only pieces of it? In the same vein, there is a plethora of summaries etc. available online to boost the students’ understanding.
6. Finally, there is the ongoing attack that has been leveled at the novel: Atticus, the great white father etc. This is really like # 3 but from a more scholarly perspective. There are many critics of the novel and their points cannot be ignored.
I have tried to give a balanced view of the novel here. Ultimately, I believe the following:
It no longer has the power it did 30 years ago. My students will say that they liked the book but were disappointed because it is so famous that they expected something else.
It should not be taught at grade 9 or 10 because it is very sophisticated in its style.
In 1960, it was ground-breaking. Not so today, there are thousands of novels that deal with the same topics in more contemporary ways. Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes is a good example.
I want my students to actually read their texts not pretend to read. The plot is not compelling enough for a lot of boys who on their own read graphic novels and comic books. If we want them to read literature we have to give them stories with more action.
Teachers have to reflect on the value of what they are teaching. Too many teachers love things because of their wonderful lesson plans or their own nostalgia for a text. There is too much of that going on in your average English class and it is not keeping pace with our ever-changing generations.
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Having only seen the movie, and not being a teacher, I’m not really one to comment favourably or otherwise. I doubt if the theme of racism is ever outdated, just as the holocaust or overlooked starvation in Africa. I truly like the book “Disgrace” by JM Coetzee (also a movie version that I have not seen), a post-apartheid novel of South Africa, although its theme is probably exploitation and guilt rather than abject racism, and its subtlelies would be lost on grade 10s. Teaching “The Book of Negroes” (despite the use of the less vulgar n word) might also give Canadian content to a theme that more or less only lies under the surface here. Those riots in the times of Eldridge Clever’s “Soul on Ice” are pretty much American experiences, as tragic as they were to the world, and still pertinent in places like Alabama. So, are you giving “To Kill a Mocking Bird” a 5/11?
Is that “subtle lies” or “subtleties?”
I have taught this novel in my 11th grade English classroom for twelve years. My students always love it and connect with it. The language offers opportunity to work on context clues and vocabulary expansion and voice in writing. My junior students are able to handle that well. They are also drawn in by all the differing socio-economic layers to Maycomb, and how that affects the characters and their motivations. I have always felt the general reading level is easy for 11th graders, but I think that’s a nice balance to the heaviness of the themes and other literary aspects to the novel. It offers them a bit of security amid all the analysis I ask them to perform. The fact that Scout is a child helps them to decipher the cruelty in the novel. That she and Dill don’t understand things b/c they have yet to be brainwashed by the community’s prejudice is powerful and enlightening to students. We do a lot of connection activities–relating it to other past and current instances of prejudice. Of all the books we read in 11th grade, it is easily their favorite, followed by Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby. My students also get excited because when they take the book home, it is always one their parents have read. It spurs at home book discussions as well, and no other book I teach does that. That is a valuable tool I hope to never lose because in realizing their parents also read and liked it, students value it more and take the reading more seriously as they are asked about it not only by me, but also by their parents. This does not happen with all the students, but probably 1/3 to 1/2 of them. The common knowledge reading network the novel creates is invaluable, as it gets the whole family supporting our lessons, if only for one unit. To Kill A Mockingbird is also the only book I teach that students will re-read, just for fun. I don’t plan on dropping it anytime soon.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I have had all those experiences as well, but with students in grade ten. It was dropped for a couple of years and sorely missed. It was taught a couple of times to juniors but actually didn’t suit them as well. As a final exam question, I ask students t write about which works they would definitely keep in the curriculum and why. Hands down TKaM is the one which they would keep above all others (which include Night, of Mice and Men, Othello, and several other major works).
Judicious and thoughftul. I pretty much agree; I myself would probably choose not to teach it, but it’s a required book for 9th graders at my school…
An anonymous teacher wrote a list of why schools should and shouldn’t teach “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The author of this list points out that it is about “discrimination, racism, cruelty and growing up-all topics that teenagers connect with.” Personally, when I read the book, I didn’t feel like I could connect to it at all, but I didn’t feel entirely estranged. While reading, I forgot who I was and just let myself be Scout. She also speaks of Scout. “The narrator, Scout, is a delight. She has an ironic view of life but at the same time, is innocent. She is also a strong female role model.” I agree with this statement, because while the story takes place when she is a child, she is telling it as an adult, which gives us a wiser view on a child’s life.
The teacher who wrote the list also gave reasons not to teach it. She says that the book has “an old-fashioned writing style and the vocabulary is very sophisticated. There is nothing wrong with students learning new words but it may also prevent a lot of students from understanding and connecting with the novel.” I only see this as more reason to teach it. From a student’s perspective, I can see how it might be hard to read a book with dated vocabulary. That being said, I can’t remember ever having an English teacher that doesn’t keep dictionaries in their classroom. I also can’t remember anyone, aside from my mother, telling me to use a dictionary to look up a word. Plenty of my peers can’t even find a word in a dictionary! We, as teenagers, have become too reliant on technology. Though we aren’t allowed to use mobile devices during school hours, we still refuse to rely on ourselves. Not having a definite understanding of the language of a book you’re reading can cause problems, but those problems could be easily fixed using a dictionary.
I think that schools should teach Harper Lee’s book because it offers students a new view of life in the 1930’s. In ninth grade, we learn about specific times in history, such as the Great Depression and WWII, but schools don’t teach us what life would have been like during that time. When reading this book, I get to connect my knowledge of factual things such as the likelihood of a law in favor of racial equality passing with more opinionated matters such as how an individual would react to the idea of racial equality. We may learn what would happen often, but every situation can’t have the same outcome. Schools have more reasons to teach Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”, than they have not to.
Thanks for the comment. You certainly put forward some good arguments but I do object to your calling me an anonymous teacher as if I was trying to hide something. It’s really more a matter of internet privacy since there are a lot of trolls out there.
I do apologize. This was an assignment for my English class, and I was under the impression that it was supposed to be placed here. It was my mistake, but I’m not sure how to take my comment down. I do really like your points, though, and I feel that your students are very lucky to have you as a teacher.
While I appreciate your fairly balanced view of TKaM, I completely disagree with several points that you make. The first: “If we want them to read literature we have to give them stories with more action.” As an English teacher, I hear this argument all the time and I think it does students a disservice to only give them overly exciting modern novels. They need to appreciate and experience more literature than books written in the past 10 or 20 years. Most of my students are minorities and connect well with this novel having experienced some form of racism in their lives. This is a very accessible novel if a teacher makes the connections to today and not just use it as a form of history. As for the language, it’s time students try to expand their vocabulary to more than just every day words and read words that are unfamiliar to them. Not knowing every word in a book does not detract from their ability to understand the story. This is one of the greatest novels ever written and it shouldn’t be written off because today’s teenagers have become desensitized to racism and violence. Nothing personal, but it’s a good thing that you retired if this are your views on teaching this amazing novel.
“Nothing personal, but it’s a good thing that you retired if this are your views on teaching this amazing novel.”
As an English teacher, I am sure you would recognise faults in your sentence, not only grammatical but mocking (bird). And I wonder why, as a teacher of minorities (assuming you mean black, or the over-generalised term African-American, students), you wouldn’t rather teach James Baldwin for historical form and context. Nothing personal, bur I’m assuming some ignorance based on your comment.
You are entitled to your opinion and experience. I consider my age a bonus because I am a much wiser person than I was in my 20’s and 30’s.
I hated this book and am appalled that so many white children are introduced to “the theme of racism” by this book, with its silent, passive black people who are saved by the white man. Of course, black people can’t fight for ourselves, right?…Loads of lazy English teachers here in the UK have it as the default text for exams. Thanks to the its copious use of the word ‘nigger’, it’s become another term to throw at black kids in the UK. (Back in the 1970s and 80s, we had plenty of other nasty racial slurs, but this one is now added to the mix.)
Just because it’s always been taught, or people have fond memories of it, or are too idle to update their lesson plans, another set of children are encouraged to pity the poor helpless black people, and another set of black children have to sit through lessons with abusive language being flung around, with no regard to their self image.
I taught Mildred Taylor’s ‘Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry’, and see no excuse for being unwilling to drop Lee’s book.
Thanks for the comment, Anthea. The book does get strong reactions for and against it.
Given that logic, we won’t be teaching anything with realistic language. Good-by Steinbeck and so many others. “Roll of Thunder” has a much lower lexile level and is suitable for lower grades than those at which TKaM is usually taught. I do wish the middle school in our district taught it (they were supposed to after we dropped it at the HS.) Cannot a teacher teach his/her students that the language used in a book isn’t necessarily what is acceptable in the classroom? You know, just because a book includes something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the book ADVOCATES that something,
Thanks for you reply. I think that your post did an excellent job of laying out the arguments for and against. I hope that your impending retirement from formal school teaching is a rich time for you.
I am shocked and appalled by your voracious behavior and regard towards this book. I am a 14 year old and have read this book 2 times and written a theme and persuasive rant on this book. Above all the intention of this reply is to make it evident that this book manifests the theme of discrimination, cruelty, racism and loss of innocence from the perspective of a Caucasian person, anyways I would like you to look at this book from a different perspective and truly understand the entitled meaning of this book. Of course this book can be interpreted from different perspectives, but I would be more objective when handling content such as this book and not mix up my own race an culture with this book. This book does not offend any Caucasian culture or tradition, and this is why I believe this book deserves more than you are bargaining primarily due to the literature and above all everlasting theme that it promotes.
I am rereading this book because my daughter has been assigned it for Freshman Summer English reading and I was concerned about her following a novel at 13 without assistance. As a former Language Arts teacher, I would advocate for the use of classic novels and challenging content especially when guided by an instructor. However, in looking at TKAM from the eyes of my 13 year old, I wonder if this is the best choice given her lack of life experiences. One post mentioned 11th grade and I can see how 16 and 17 year olds would have a much easier time digesting the content. I do think Nostalgia plays into decisions in book choices for some educators but there are also educators who are adept at navigating students through difficult works. As I was reading about Scout and her growing dislike for school as her teachers forced her into lessons clearly not designed to differentiate for her or her classmates’ culture or prior knowledge, I can only imagine what inappropriate grade/age placement of even a great novel like this one will do for my daughter’s love of literature in the future.
Your comment is very wise. Too many people assume that because the book is about children that it was written for children but the looking back perspective of the narrator would suggest otherwise. There is always the pull between classics and contemporary lit. but I see no harm in waiting to read some of these books when you are older. Many of my mature grade 11 and 12 students chose to read YA fiction in their spare time even though they were more than capable of reading something more sophisticated. There is nothing wrong with reading things that appeal to us-I see it all as a stepping stone.
Any suggestions for a replacement?
Nancy
I am thinking of going and borrowing the book and reading it with my granddaughter. Also it is too bad that some people believe it is OK to get on the internet and be a meanie just because they have a different point of view. The world needs to be a little kinder.
I just started to read this book to my special education students in 8th grade. I will be talking to my admin at my school, because I will not introduce this era of our history (African American) with this book, Yes it should be talked about, but not this book. Time for a change. I went to an all white school and had to sit through this book 25 years ago. And every negative word/stereotype/inference, that was introduced was then used on me and my family for some time. I will find another book. I also work lunch duty, and this kids have already started name calling the few African American students in the school. If you teach this book, please also teach the responsibility of not being a verbal bully.
Why do some teachers try to sugar coat our history.
I just read this classic in jail. Surrounded by white and black people. “Honkies and Niggers” Racists and intelligent people.
These people make up our society. It is a fact of life. Some people are idiots!
After all…. half of the people are below average intelligence, and if you can’t get your head around that fact then I’m sorry for you.
Don’t we need to educate our kids? They need to be informed. this is the way some people think!
I studied Eng Lit in school. We were taught Chaucer, ‘The wife of Bath’? Anyone??….get used to different words…get used to sexism….racism…sarcasm….facts of life! Ugly and true!
Racism? Anyone? anyone ever heard of Shakespeare? I studied Alice Walker, “The Color Purple”
Who is it out there that gets off on “protecting” our children from the ugly and beautiful ?
Quit bubble-wrapping the facts of life! Create informed compassionate individuals. Teach kids to read….and write.
Sure. I’m not certain what point you are making but I guess you believe the book is worthwhile. I agree that things shouldn’t be sugar-coated since learning about history can be a powerful thing.
If you have really read the book, you will know that it is far inferior to the novels written by those who really understand the dignity of black people. If you have read the comments, you will see my suggestion of a book that shows the ugly realities of life, without portraying African Americans as little more than overgrown children.
Hi, Anthea. I presume you are commenting on Elly’s comment and not mine. I totally agree with you.
The style of narration for classics like Shakespeare , voltaire , and yes , Harper Lee or Margaret Mitchell shall always be a point of discussion among teachers. I personally believe narrative starts losing form in the magical hands of a devoted teacher .
For all classics , best times are always two . Limited exposure which intrigues rather than completes is for the children who are grown enough to relate to the idea of mortality and yet simple enough to readily understand archetypal characters and then again when the memory of that intriguing passage narrated through a wise teacher matures into personal experience of life’s so called archetypal challenges. That everyone faces while ripening for ultimate transition.
It’s my personal experience with these two amazing american authors , that like Herodotus , they make you live in the skins of their scenes and characters. The word n could be substituted by the word jap and then commie and then alien Iranian or Arab and so on . Yet the human tendency to isolate , marginalise and victimise other humans , is a chronic negative archetype, which when comes into force will always generate a father archetype to reconcile and regulate. This father archetype of Harper Lee , is not answering to a passive reader.It is regulating the forces of the moment being actively lived by the characters . Or an engaged reader/narrator . Thus restoring the moral fabric of that particular moment until eternity. Hope rises imperfectly in imperfect situations. The human struggle to achieve moral happiness always continue in the milieu of moments. Moments keep changing , but the point of struggle remains the same. Like the cry of vanquished Croesus who called out to the Persian king , still rings true . ” Time does not stay the same”.
Shah — In what way does the narrative “lose form” when well-taught??
I am not sure what points you are trying to make in general here, as your own narrative is oddly worded and murky. Please be clear and succinct — read what you have written before posting.
Wow, the vagaries of time…Its two years since I penned my poetic appreciation. Only today I got to read the annoyed rebuke of pculliton! Sorry I hurt something. Times change the negroes to Presidents, Japanese to donors, Chinese to allies. That explains my mention of Croesus. When a good teacher starts any narrative, it is his personality that conditions the impressions that form in his students imagination. That’s how narrative loses (bookish) form and comes alive through the Teacher being. A book stops being a book as the student enters it’s heart through portals of meaning that open when the true teacher speaks. Education is about conditioning behavior. Not mere skill sets. Therefore, I referred to archetypes. Since archetypal behavior dominates 90% of auto-pilot behavior. It’s a lengthy field. Please look up substantial work on behavior modification, civilization and education. You may begin from Stanford’s treasures. A good teacher is always learning. Like strainers also need to be cleaned.
Lee’s novel is about behavior modification. Its about enlightenment of perception.
Dear pculliton. Kindly use the term “please” when advising someone.
You appear to have read Lee’s book like a hundred times. Now sit alone and realize its meaning. It’s spirit. All classic books have spirit. No one can change behaviour of other beings, without living under the skin of their subject or walking in their subjects shoes. A good teacher doesn’t work on mere skills to speedily put on different hats to define different situations. That’s like teaching stereotypes. Life is a grander legend. A good teacher educates about appropriate behaviour which will open vistas of understanding, leading to the mastery of life necessary for success. I have seen and worked with such teachers.
What do i do? I’m a C.E.O in an highly demanding organisation and a certified trainer for trainers in change management from one of the top incumbents among the fortune 500 companies. My work creates organisational level results in successful crises management by understanding the facts right. I teach and mentor people to see the situation as it is and not how it should be. Only a correct appreciation of situations can lead to lasting results translateable into balance sheet billions.
Sincere regards
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To Kill a Mockingbird teaches a powerful lesson that most books teens are interested in today, like their “graphic novels”, don’t contain. I’m a sophomore in high school and I just read this novel with my class. I not only learned about an important time in our history, but of courage and integrity. To Kill a Mockingbird may not be very stimulating for all high school students, but it left an important impression on me, and I know others appreciated it too. It should mean something that it’s still teaching a few kids lessons today, even if it’s not everyone, even if it’s not the majority in some schools. I am more involved in literature than my other classmates but should teenagers out there have to deal with simpler, easier to comprehend novels just because others find big words and mature concepts scary? Teach your students to have a broader vocabulary and help them understand novels like this instead of looking for an easier way out. These words and concepts will never go away and all will have to face them at some point.
I am a student that is currently reading this book. My mother enforces that I should read the ‘classics’ like this, as well as One flew over the cuckoos nest and The boy in the striped pajamas. I however, am strongly against this idea. I’ve read the three books listed thus far already, and they were a complete waste of my time, they weren’t good books, and they didnt teach a message worth reading the book for and going through all the intense vocab(note: that vocab was hard for me, and I’m a 9th grader with an IQ of 173 and have been reading Ted Dekker and Dean Koontz since 3rd grade). I have found so, so many better books which have a better message, simpler but still provocative vocabulary, and more interesting books to myself and my classmates. To kill a mockingbird is not interesting, and annoying, and should not be taught in schools. However, other books like The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and 1984, by George Orwell are more connecting and interesting to students at my age level, as well as giving challenging but not too challenging vocab and a good message.
~Jacobsen
Connor, thanks for the comment. TKAM has its flaws but no book is perfect. Surprised that you didn’t find 1984 difficult to wade through but I can see by your choices that you enjoy dystopian lit. Schools tend to use the one book for all students method and it just doesn’t work. You are living proof of this but you also appear to be a very strong reader so you are not the type of student that anyone worries about. Keep up your reading choices even when some of them are boring. Read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-might be something you’d enjoy.
I have trouble believing you have an IQ of 173. The vocabulary in TKMB is not so sophisticated that a genius would find it intimidating. Now, I can accept someone with that high of an IQ disliking the book for any number of reasons, many of which come down to personal taste. However, you specifically mentioned that the vocabulary was challenging to you, not just your classmates. Are you sure you are being completely honest with your reasoning?
At what point are you at that you are able to just question someone’s is because I have taken a government issue in test as a ninth grader and found out my it is 278
Christina, I think it is unnecessary to attack someone personally because they are criticizing a book. It’s called ad hominem-attack the man, rather than the argument.
As a homeschool teacher of a modern minded 9th grader, I really appreciate your honest assessment. I’ve never read it personally, not proud to say, but know it is a classic. Guess I’ll wait a while to assign it. Gives me time to read it, now.
I am a 9th grade student and we just finished To Kill A Mockingbird. Even though I did not personally connect to the book it still has its place. Also if you are going to stop teaching about racism and how bad it is when do you expect your students to grow up and become mature. For krap sake people if you don’t cover this topic you’re students could end as twisted as the people in the book. Then you also have to see that a majority of kids don’t care what society thinks or what the word means. They make their own meanings and almost all of them hate racism, but adults as I have seen will probably ignore this and everything’s that any minor will say. This is purely because you guys view us as innocent individuals who don’t understand anything, but we really know what we are talking about
Thanks. Interesting perspective, but I like the challenge of the vocabulary ,the local color and history it presents- so do my students. They step up to the work because they know it’s a really famous book that so many have told them about. They want to tackle “adult” reads. As 9th graders they want the challenge. At first it’s tough, but it’s my job to get them past the vocabulary and history of the beginning so they can appreciate the rest of the piece. I don’t think we need to change novels to adapt to the changing world; just change the way we teach the novel perhaps.
I’m in year 25 of teaching. The idea that this is a book for adults resonates with me. A key to understanding this book is realizing it has another character–the older narrator. The older narrator provides us with insights the nine-year old could not. For example, when the ladies at the tea party ask Scout, who is wearing a dress, where her britches are, she replies, “Under the dress,” much to the amusement of the ladies. The nine year old doesn’t understand the laughter, but the mature narrator knows to put this incident into the story. Going through the book with the lens of noting the differences between the child narrator and the mature narrator would provide an excellent way to look at the book.
As for an exposition of racial relations, I don’t think this book is so hot. Tom Robinson is more of a prop in this story. He enters the stage, acts, and leaves, in service to the narrative about the Finch family and the town of Macomb. When he is no longer convenient to the narrative, he’s shot and killed–the easiest trick in the craft book.
As I looked at the youtube 1964 interview of Harper Lee on this book, her failure to mention blacks struck me. She was far more concerned in the interview that her readers appreciate the mores and folkways of the white southerners. That is fine as far as it goes, but it leaves me wondering, whose story is not being told? Tom’s and Calpurnia’s, that’s for sure. We get just enough detail about them to keep the Finch narrative moving.
One book I would recommend instead is “Bad Boy,” by Walter Dean Myers. This is the memoir of a sensitive person coming of age in a racial context from the point of view of a black person. This book, it seems to me, tells the story Tom and Calpurnia may have told if anyone had asked them.
You make some good points. The main criticism aimed at the book is the racial aspect and that Atticus is the great white father.
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I’m sorry , but It seemed like you were definitely leaning in one side of the road than the other. You wrote paragraphs for people not to read it and few, very short sentences for readers to read it. I personally am a 9th grader and the dumbest people in my class completely understood it. It teaches a very important topic in the ‘real’ world and cannot be ignored and this book seems to be a great way for students and young adults to get an insight racism and predijuce and our past. Maybe , your to blame that your students aren’t interested.
I did not like the fact and I quote “The book was written for adults not teenagers.” I believe that this book addresses issues that are still relevant in todays society.This novel helps kids to appreciate what they have and understand and be open minded about different people and their backgrounds.another one is the “It is about racism seen through the eyes of a white person trying not to offend too many people in 1960. Well I believe that 1960 was a sensitive period of time were racism was predominant and the novel giving a whites man point of view of a black man’s culture was not the fact that he was trying to not offend people but discuss the issues that went on in this period of time not to try and blame anyone but talk.