Name: _______________________________________________
Period: _________
To Kill a Mockingbird​
Study Guide Part 1: Pages 1-149
Reading Schedule:
Your only homework at this time is to read and enjoy the novel, complete the study guide as you go,
and come to class prepared for activities and discussions. Set aside a specific time to read each
afternoon/evening and stick to it! This is one of the most important novels in our nation’s history;
you will greatly benefit from “getting into it” instead of “faking it”! There will also be reading quizzes
along the way, so it will negatively impact your grade if you are not keeping up with the reading
schedule.
Read Chapter 1 and complete study guide page: Due Friday, January 8
Read Chapters 2 and 3 and complete both study guide pages: Due Tuesday, January 12
Read Chapter 4 and complete study guide page: Due Wednesday, January 13
Read Chapter 5 and complete study guide page: Due Thursday, January 14
Read Chapter 6 and complete study guide page: Due Friday, January 15
Read Chapters 7 and 8 and complete both study guide pages: Due Tuesday, January 19
Read Chapter 9 and complete study guide page: Due Wednesday, January 20
Read Chapter 10 and complete study guide page: Due Thursday, January 21
Read Chapter 11 and complete study guide page: Due Friday, January 22
Chapter 1 Pages 1-19 “That was the summer Dill came to us.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Assuaged—
Quaint—
Piety—
Malevolent—
Taciturn—
Predilection—
Imprudent—
Nebulous—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. In what state does the novel take place?
2. What does the children’s father, Atticus Finch, do for a living?
3. From whose point of view will the story be told?
4. Who is Calpurnia and what is she like?
5. What game does Dill invent?
6. What did Arthur (Boo) Radley do (at age 33) that landed him temporarily in the county jail?
7. According to Jem’s description, what does Boo look like?
8. What act of “courage” on Jem’s part ends the chapter?
Think a Little Deeper:
9. Atticus tells Scout that there are “other ways [besides chaining them to beds} of making
people into ghosts.” What does he mean by “ghosts”? What “ways” might he have in mind?
List several.
Chapter 2 Pages 20-29 “We’ll do like we always do at home,” [Jem said], “but you’ll see—school’s
different.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Condescended—
Mortification—
Compelled—
Sojourn—
Illicitly—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. On her first day of school, what does Scout get in trouble for? List three things.
2. How does Miss Caroline Fisher feel at the end of her first day? How do you know?
3. What are the Cunninghams like?
Think a Little Deeper:
4. What do the “errors” Scout commits the first day have in common with one another? What
does this tell you about Scout’s first six years of life? How is this clearly different from most
other children’s childhood experiences at the time?
Chapter 3 Pages 30-42 “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his
point of view…”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Cordially—
Condescension—
Expounding—
Fractious—
Iniquities—
Amiable—
Contentious—
Severed—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. How does Scout solve her problem with Walter Cunningham?
2. How does Jem solve Scout’s problem with Walter Cunningham?
3. Why can’t Walter Cunningham pass the first grade?
4. What scared and shocked Miss Caroline? (Do you know another name for this creature?)
Think a Little Deeper:
5. When Scout questions Walter’s table manners, you learn something about Calpurnia and
about her place in the family. What do you learn? Why might this surprise some citizens of
Maycomb?
Chapter 4 Pages 43-54 “Grown folks don’t have hidin’ places.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Auspicious—
Gingerly—
Sluggishly—
Arbitrate—
Tyranny—
Evasion—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. What is the first gift that appears in the hollow tree? What other gifts do the children
find?
2. What new facts does Dill offer about his father?
3. How has the Boo Radley game changed?
4. When Scout rolls into the Radley front yard in the tire, what does she hear?
Think a Little Deeper:
5. How is Jem changing? Give several specific ways.
Chapter 5 55-66 “His name’s Arthur and he’s alive.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Aloof—
Benevolence--
Morbid—
Tormenting—
Benign—
Cordiality—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. What does Scout admire about Miss Maudie?
2. What do you learn about Uncle Jack?
3. What new plan do the boys devise to get Boo to come out? Why doesn’t it work?
4. What does Dill say that causes Scout to accuse him of lying?
5. What direct order does Atticus give the children?
Think a Little Deeper:
6. What do you know about Dill that might explain why he wants Boo to come out and “sit a
spell with us” in order to “feel better”? Why, too, is it understandable that Dill lies so often
and so well?
Chapter 6 Pages 67-76 “It was then, I suppose, that Jem and I first began to part company.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Prowess—
Teetered—
Ramshackle—
Bewilderment—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. How do the children plan to spend Dill’s last night in Maycomb?
2. What goes wrong with the children’s escape plan?
3. At whom does Mr. Nathan think he has fired his gun?
4. How do the children claim to have spent the evening?
5. What makes Jem decide to return to the Radley yard that night?
Think a Little Deeper:
6. What makes Jem and Scout begin to “part company”? Define their two separate ways of
looking at the situation. What has Jem learned that Scout is still too young to see?
Chapter 7 Pages 77-84 “As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and
walk around in it.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Perpetual—
Ascertaining—
Tarnished—
Cleaved—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. What does Jem tell Scout about “that night” at Boo Radley’s?
2. What new gifts do they find in the knothole? (there are five)
3. What ends the knothole gifts?
Think a Little Deeper:
4. Why do you think Jem cries at the end of this chapter?
Chapter 8 Pages 85-98 “…the coldest weather since 1885.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Caricature—
Accosted—
Aberration—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. Who dies this winter?
2. What “aberration of nature” frightens Scout?
3. What method does Jem devise to make a snowman?
4. When Maudie’s house begins to burn, what other possibility is the Finch family worried
about?
5. Why doesn’t Atticus help carry out Maudie’s furniture?
6. Whom will Scout someday want to thank for keeping her warm on the night of the fire?
Think a Little Deeper:
7. When Scout comes home with the mysterious blanket wrapped over her shoulders, “Jem
seemed to have lost his mind. He began pouring out our secrets right and left…” What is it
that Jem is trying to get Atticus to understand?
Chapter 9 Pages 99-117 “…the beginning of a rather thin time for Jem and me.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Fanatical—
Deportment—
Obstreperous—
Evasion—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. Who is Tom Robinson?
2. What gift does Uncle Jack give the children?
3. What new habit has Scout picked up that bothers Uncle Jack?
4. What does cousin Francis tell Scout about Dill’s home life?
5. Why does Scout fight her cousin after the Christmas dinner at Finch’s Landing?
6. What is “Maycomb’s usual disease”?
Think a Little Deeper:
7. Look closely at the reasons Atticus gives Scout for defending Tom Robinson. Also look at
his statement, “every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifeftime that affects him
personally. This one’s mine, I guess.” What is it about this case that strikes so deeply at
what Atticus believes?
Chapter 10 Pages 118-131 “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s
a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Inconspicuous—
Rudiments—
Vehemently—
Mausoleum—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. In Scout’s eyes, what is Atticus’s chief fault?
2. What reason does Uncle Jack give for Atticus’s unwillingness to teach the kids to shoot?
3. What crisis shows the children a surprising skill their father possesses?
4. Who is Heck Tate?
5. What is Atticus’s old nickname?
Think a Little Deeper:
6. Why is it a “sin” to kill a mockingbird? What is the larger principle involved here?
Chapter 11 Pages 132-149 “I wanted to see what courage is, instead of getting the idea that
courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you
begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”
Improve Your Vocabulary (define the following words):
Interdict—
Oppressive—
Undulate—
Cantankerous—
Get Your Facts Straight:
1. What makes the children hate and fear Mrs. Dubose?
2. What two comments specifically infuriate Jem to the point that he can’t control his
temper?
3. What does Jem do to get revenge?
4. What is his punishment?
5. What did Mrs. Dubose vow to do before she died?
Think a Little Deeper:
6. What exactly is an “[n-word] lover”? Does it really not mean anything, as Atticus claims?
According to Maycomb, why is it such a sin? (Consider the historical time and place.)