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Chapter one-five vocabulary:
“To Kill A Mockingbird”
Chapter one discussion:
* What are some of Boo Radley’s physical
characteristics? Why do we have this image of
him? What are some of his personal
characteristics? How does the text shape our
understanding of the real Boo Radely?
* Based on your reading of Chapter 1, how
would Jem, Scout, and Dill describe Boo
Radley? Use the best evidence from the novel
to support the description
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Edification: education
Disapprobation: dislike
Asylum: shelter/retreat
Revelation: leak/surprise/shock
Detachment: unit of disinterest
Chap 1 notes:
• Scout, the narrator, remembers the summer
that her brother Jem broke his arm, and she
looks back over the years to recall the
incidents that led to that climactic event.
Scout provides a brief introduction to the
town of Maycomb, Alabama and its
inhabitants, including her widowed father
Atticus Finch, attorney and state legislator;
Calpurnia,
Chap 1 notes continued:
Chap 2 do now:
• The story starts with the first summer that Scout
and Jem meet Dill, a little boy from Meridian,
Mississippi who spends the summers with his
aunt, the Finchs' next-door neighbor Miss Rachel
Haverford.
• Dill's fascination, in particular, leads to all sorts of
games and plans to try and get Boo to come
outside. Their attempts culminate in a dare to
Jem, which he grudgingly takes. Jem runs into the
Radleys' yard and touches the outside of the
house.
• Think of a time where you and your parents
(or a teacher/other adult) misunderstood each
other or came into conflict because you were
from different generations. How did your
parents’ world and upbringing affect their
point of view? How did your world affect your
point of view?
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Chapter 2 notes:
Chap 2 notes continued:
• When summer ends, Dill returns to
Mississippi. Scout starts her first year of
school. She hates it from the first day. Her
teacher, a newcomer to the town named Miss
Caroline, actually criticizes Scout for knowing
how to read.
• Just before lunch, Miss Caroline discovers that
one boy, Walter Cunningham, has brought no
food and does not go home to eat. Miss Caroline
offers to lend Walter a quarter, but he refuses.
Scout tries to explain that the Cunningham's are
so poor they couldn't pay Miss Caroline back, and
that Miss Caroline is "shaming" Walter by trying
to force the quarter on him. Miss Caroline gets
annoyed and "whips" Scout by tapping her palm
with a ruler.
Chapter 2: discussion
Chapter 3:
• A: How did Scout learn to read and write?
• B: Describe the Cunningham clan.
• C: When Scout asks her father if they are as
poor as the Cunningham’s, how does he
respond? Through Atticus’s, what does the
reader learn about the Great Depression and
how it affected different classes of people in
different ways?
• D: Why does Ms. Caroline punish Scout?
Chapter 3 cont..
• In class that afternoon, Miss Caroline had another runin with a student, but this time it was with Burris Ewell.
Burris, being a member of the Ewell family, was
unclean and ill mannered.
• By the end of the day, Scout was sure that she didn't
want to go back to school because she didn't want to
have to refrain from reading and writing for nine whole
months. After supper Atticus asked Scout if she was
ready to read, and she told him that she didn't want to
go to school anymore. She explained that she didn't
want to go because Miss Caroline wouldn't allow her to
read and write.
• When Jem started across the schoolyard to go
home for lunch, he found Scout rubbing Walter
Cunningham's nose in the dirt. She blamed him
for getting off on the wrong foot with her
teacher. Jem called his sister off of the little boy
and invited Walter to come home with them for
lunch. Walter was reluctant until Jem assured him
that their fathers were friends. He also promised
Walter that Scout wouldn't fight him anymore,
and although it annoyed her to be bossed around
by her big brother, she agreed to behave herself.
Chapter 4:
• One day, while running past the Radley house on her way home
from school, Scout notices some gum in the knothole of a tree
overhanging the Radley's fence. And on the last day of school, Scout
and Jem find two old pennies in the same knothole. Jem stares at
the Radley place, deep in thought.
• The three-year age difference makes Jem more perceptive than
Scout. Scout doesn't know who's leaving the presents, while Jem's
long look at the Radley House indicates he senses Boo is trying to
connect with them.
• Dill arrives for the summer. After an accident rolling a tire that
leaves Scout lying on the pavement right next to the Radley's
house, Jem comes up with a new game: they're going to act out
Boo Radley's story. Atticus catches them playing. Jem lies and says
they weren't impersonating the Radley's.
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Chapter 5 notes:
• Jem and Dill start excluding Scout, who begins to spend more time with
Miss Maudie Atkinson, a neighbor who grew up with Atticus. One evening,
Scout asks Miss Maudie why Boo Radley never comes out. Miss Maudie
says it's because Boo doesn't want to. She says Boo was always polite as a
boy, and that Boo's father was a Baptist so religious he thought all
pleasure was a sin.
• Miss Maudie, like Atticus, helps teach the children to question prejudice
and treat people with respect. Here she provides details that start to
transform Boo from a one-dimensional monster to a human being
damaged by his father's intolerance and lack of love and joy.
• The next day, Dill and Jem get Scout to help them try to slip a note through
a window of the Radley house with a fishing rod. Atticus catches them and
tells them to stop bothering Boo Radley just because he seems peculiar.
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