To Kill a Mockingbird is set in Maycomb, Alabama, during the 1930s Great Depression. It is a small town with small-minded people who demonstrate terrible racism and prejudice. Seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl, Scout, we fi nd out that a local black man has been accused of raping a white woman. Scout’s father, a lawyer, ends up defending him.
Author Bio.
Harper Lee is an American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for To Kill a Mockingbird. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a homemaker. She at ended the University of Alabama but did not complete her degree in legal studies. She only wrote two novels in her lifetime: To Kill a Mockingbird and a prequel to this book, Go Set a Watchman, which wasn’t published until 2015, the year before her death.
What I will learn:
to understand the
eff ectiveness of a key moment
to identify key moments in a novel
Racism, discrimination and prejudice are strong themes in the book. In groups, think of any news story you have come across that deals with these themes. Explain why this particular news story stood out to you.
