To Kill a Mockingbird

One night when my dad was out of town on a business trip, my mom—pregnant with her sixth child--loaded her five children into the car and headed to a drive-in movie venue showing To Kill a Mockingbird.  Whether or not my mom thought her children would sleep through most of the movie, I do not know.  I certainly did not, and except for perhaps my brother Ken, who would have been about three, none of us slept at all. I was eight-years-old, the oldest of the brood, and I still remember vividly certain scenes from that first movie experience: Jem rolling Scout inside a tire that ends up hitting the Radley front porch, Atticus shooting a mad dog, the jury convicting Tom Robinson of a crime he did not commit, Bob Ewell attacking Scout and Jem in the dark woods.

As a teenager, I read To Kill a Mockingbird on my own, never as part of an English class in school, and subsequent readings have only enhanced my wonderment and appreciation; it never loses ranking as one of my favorite books of all time.

Over a decade ago I had the opportunity to receive a classroom set of To Kill a Mockingbird books because of bonus points garnered from repeated purchases through a prolific publisher of books aimed at schools and students.  Most often To Kill a Mockingbird is taught during the high school years—that has certainly been the case in the school systems for which I’ve taught—yet I’ve spent my career as an English Language Arts teacher teaching solely in middle school.  Still, I rationalized that I might teach high school at some point—after all, I’m certified through grade twelve—so maybe I would have the chance to use those books with students someday.  I selected them as my “prize” and then proceeded to carry them in and out of five schools in three different countries.

But my “someday” arrived.  This spring I taught To Kill a Mockingbird ... to my eighth graders!

Such a remarkable venture:  fascinating discussion, unexpected insights, and some incredibly moving moments.

And just how did this all transpire, you may wonder.  Well,... you work with someone (my someone is Frank) who has only taught adults and high school before teaching eighth grade English Language Arts and who wants to teach Great Expectations or Grapes of Wrath to eighth graders and who insists the high school won’t mind if we do and who has ultimate say on the funds allotted to the English Department.  You wince and maybe roll your eyes a bit and say you don’t plan to do Dickens with eighth graders and there is probably a more accessible Steinbeck to use in middle school.  Then he counters, what about To Kill a Mockingbird?

At the end of the last school year, Frank had enough funds to purchase eighty copies of To Kill a Mockingbird.  He taught it for a goodly portion of first semester this school year.  In February he turned over 76 copies of the book to me, before departing for England where he had accepted a new job teaching high school German.  Because my four sections of eighth grade English numbered about 85 students, I could finally let one of my classes use the copies of To Kill a Mockingbird I had scrupulously cached all these years!  We commenced our reading at the beginning of April and finished at the end of May.  In June we watched the movie, and along with several students I choked up when Reverend Sykes said, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”  (Of course, I did it four times, once in each class!)

Most definitely I read To Kill a Mockingbird in its entirety again this spring and then reread certain portions with my students in class.  From both discussion and student writing, here are things I observed and learned about the novel and my students:

·         The Finch family made an impression; they wanted to include Calpurnia as part of the Finch family and felt enormous frustration that Aunt Alexandra was part of it by blood.

·         Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, and Dolphus Raymond fascinated them—their circumstances and their choices.

·         One question arose in all classes after we finished reading the book:  Who would take care of Bob Ewell’s children?

·         I had multiple parents actually sit down and read this book with their children.  This action totally made a difference in the experience of reading a novel for two of my struggling readers; in fact, it may be the only book each of those students read from start to finish all year.

·         One afternoon after school, Craig and Alyse came in to work on their final projects and started discussing the novel with me: Why couldn’t the judge just decide Tom Robinson’s case?  He would have acquitted him.  We ended up talking quite a bit about our jury system in the USA.

·         Discussions and essays also showed my students' naiveté and innocence; they still lack a very complete knowledge of history and even life in general—which is okay, of course.  They are only thirteen and fourteen.  Still, I do hope they read To Kill a Mockingbird at least one more time in the coming years

As I look ahead to next school year and the fairly certain prospect of teaching eighth graders again, I realize two things:  (1) Since Frank has abandoned me for that high school position in England, I may be facing the wrath of some high school English teachers on my own.  (2) I will still teach To Kill a Mockingbird again next year!

** FOOTNOTE:  In the novel, Scout mentions how her father preferred to sit by himself at church.  I do, too—at least when I’m not with family.  I tend to get a lot more from the sermon and lessons when I can disappear into the space in my mind where the words and ideas and my own experiences intersect, when I don’t have to concern myself with social niceties and expectations.  I know there are people who worry about me and feel like they need to sit by me or invite me to sit with them, but I really am okay by myself.  So was Atticus!