To Kill a Mockingbird Part 2

Harper Lee, author of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, chose to structure the story with Scout retelling the story as one giant flashback because:

• She wanted her narrator to be able to tell the story through the eyes of a child, but she also wanted the narrator to be able to add commentary filled with maturity and adult-like awareness of the world around her.

• She wanted to tell the story in chronological order (from beginning to end) so the reader wouldn't get confused.

• She wanted readers to understand the events of the story as only a child would. She didn't want any wisdom or insight that an adult might offer.

• She thought the flashback would make the plot simple and easy to understand.

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Directions: Read the lines above each question. Choose the sentence or phrase that best creates suspense in the passage.

"Hush a minute, Scout," he said, pinching me.

We walked along silently. "Minute's up," I said. "Whatcha thinkin' about?" I turned to look at him, but his outline was barely visible.

"Thought I heard something," he said. "Stop a minute."

We stopped.

"Hear anything?" he asked.

• "Hush a minute, Scout," he said, pinching me.

• We stopped.

• We walked along silently.

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We had not gone five paces before he made me stop again. "Jem, are you tryin' to scare me? You know I'm too old--"

"Be quiet," he said, and I knew he was not joking.

The night was still. I could hear his breath coming easily beside me. Occasionally there was a sudden breeze that hit my bare legs, but it was all that remained of a promised windy night. This was the stillness before a thunderstorm. We listened.

"Heard an old dog just then," I said.

The line that creates the most suspense in the above passage is:

• We had not gone five paces before he made me stop again.

• "Be quiet," he said, and I knew he was not joking.

• "Heard an old dog just then," I said.

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"You reckon we oughta sing, Jem?"

"No. Be real quiet again, Scout."

We had not increased our pace. Jem knew as well as I that it was difficult to walk fast without stumping a toe, tripping on stones, and other inconveniences, and I was barefooted. Maybe it was the wind rustling the trees except the big oak.

Our company shuffled and dragged his feet, as if wearing heavy shoes. Whoever it was wore thick cotton pants; what I thought were trees rustling was the soft swish of cotton on cotton, wheek wheek with every step.

The line that creates suspense in the above passage is:

• "You reckon we oughta sing, Jem?"

• "No. Be real quiet again, Scout."

• We had not increased our pace...

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Consider this theme: It can be painful to lose our innocence as we mature into adults.

Which of the following events DOES NOT help advance (develop) this theme?

• Dill runs away from his mother and new step-father in Meridian after they have no interest in spending time with him.

• Jem realizes the awful cruelty of the world and the simple hell people give people just because they may be different in some way.

• Scout realizes that there is nothing wrong with defending her father and beating up those children who call him mean names.

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Which topic is NOT addressed by the novel in general?

• Racism

• Revenge

• Mature romantic love

• coming of age (growing up)

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Which paragraph or quote best presents the theme of protecting goodness and innocence rather than destroying it?

• “I wanted you to see what real 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 see it through no matter what." - Atticus Finch

• “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” - Atticus Finch

• “I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.” - Scout Finch

• “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” -Miss Maudie Atkinson

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During the Jim Crow era, African Americans were treated as second-class citizens.

Which of the following quotations from the text illustrate this statement?

• "The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption--the evil assumption--that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber."

  "Which gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you." -Atticus Finch

• “Try fighting with your head for a change...

  it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.” - Atticus Finch

• “You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.” - Scout Finch

• “See there?" Jem was scowling triumphantly. "Nothin' to it. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl its mortifyin.” - Jem Finch

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Read the following passage.

The night was still. I could hear his breath coming easily beside me. Occasionally there was a sudden breeze that hit my bare legs, but it was all that remained of a promised windy night. This was the stillness before a thunderstorm. We listened.

"Heard an old dog just then," I said.

"It's not that, " Jem answered. "I hear it when we're walkin' along, but when we stop I don't hear it."

"You hear my costume rustlin'. Aw, it's just Halloween got you..."

I said it more to convince myself than Jem, for sure enough, as we began walking, I heard what he was talking about. It was not my costume.

What does the bolded phrase foreshadow?

• The night when the kids were watching Atticus sit outside the jail to protect Tom Robinson from the gang.

• The days right before Tom Robinson's trial when the whole town went crazy.

• The night when Bob Ewell attacks the children and Boo Radley saves them from being murdered.

• The night when Mr. Nathan shot the gun after the kids were sneaking around Boo Radley's yard.

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In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, the symbol of the mockingbird represents:

• freedom for all people

• innocence and beauty of certain creatures and humans

• losing a best friend

• the beauty of nature

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