Assignment: Understanding Setting: To Kill a Mockingbird

 

To help you understand the importance of setting in To Kill a Mockingbird, take a careful look at various aspects of the time and place of the novel (the turbulant 40's).

 

Artists may draw, musicians may play (or select a song), actors - kinesthetic people - may do a reading, or come up with an idea and get it approved.

 

You must also write a one-page paper explaining your project.  It must address the following:

  1.  How does your project relate to the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

  2.  What is the time period?

  3.  Add additional information to make your project complete.

 

 

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1. Prepare a map of Maycomb, or illustration of Scout's neighborhood:

 

• Show white side and black side of the tracks.
• Depict at least five sites in detail.
• Must be colored.

Resources:

Use your book, To Kill a Mockingbird, and your IMAGINATION.  If you simply go online and copy another person's work, you will get an F.  That is plagiarism!

 

2. Create a songbook:

• Research songs of the period and select a minimum of 2 songs to burn onto a CD.
• Print the lyrics (must be teacher-approved).
• Prepare a jacket, with art/photo identifying the songs and explaining their relevance to the book/period.

Resources:

Web sources.  Remember that you are researching music in the 1940's.  You may need to go to two websites to get this project done.  The first website will tell you who was popular during the time.  Try this site by the Kingwood College Library.  Then, go to another site to get the lyrics.  For lyrics pages, a dot com is OK.  Try: The Guitar Guy.  For pictures of the time, you can use the Kingwood site, or go to the Media Center.  We have books on the 40's with lots of pictures.

 

3. Build a model of the Maycomb County Courthouse

Resources: Use your book and your imagination.

 

4. Write a collection of period poems.

• If you're a poet, apply your talent to the period to write at least 3 poems.
• Prepare a cover for your collection.

Resources:

 

Web sources.  Remember that you are researching poems or poetry in the 1940's.  You may need to go to two websites to get this project done.  The first website will tell you who was popular during the time.  Then, go to another site to read some poems by that poet in the 40's.  Remember not to copy anyone's work.  You just need to get a feel for what was popular and then write your own work.  Try: www.poets.org.  For pictures of the time, you can use the Kingwood site, or go to the Media Center.  We have books on the 40's with lots of pictures.

 

 

5. Perform a reading/interpretation of period poetry

Select a minimum of 4 Langston Hughes poems from the collection: The Panther and the Lash.

Research the poems to understand and explain their context

Give a reading/interpretation to the class, with notes on the poems.

Resources:

The book, The Panther and the Lash. 

The database: Literary Reference Center: This site will provide you with Literary Criticism for Langston Hughes

  

 

 Use this site from school.

 

 Use this site from Home.  Type in your public library card number or ask the library desk for ours.

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Your project will be counted twice:

• Quiz Grade.
• Averaged with second project to equal on Test grade.

Projects will be graded according to:

Accuracy (40%) - For full credit, the features you focus on must be correct.  Spelling counts.

Completeness (30%) - Observers must be able to grasp the point you are making from your project.

Creativity (30%) - Your opportunity to express yourself in presenting information about the period.

 

Timeliness - In keeping with the English Department policy, your grade will drop one letter grade per day for every day your project is late.  Don't throw it away!!!