Mr. D's English Class: February 10, 2014 - Using Reading Strategies to Make Meaning

I can learn about plot, characters, and conflict from reading short excerpts.

To do this I must make inferences, reread, and know that I will construct meaning as I add context.

I will demonstrate this by completing the analysis guide.

Directions: Use the quotes below to help you complete the analysis guide (below the quotes)

“You can just take that back, boy!” I shouted.

This order, given by me to Cecil Jacobs, was the beginning of a rather thin time for Jem and me. My fists were clenched and I was ready to let fly. Atticus had promised me he would wear me out if he ever heard of me fighting anymore; I was far too old and too big for such childish things, and the sooner I learned to hold in, the better off everybody would be. I soon forgot.

Cecil Jacobs made me forget. He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers. I denied it, but told Jem.

“What’d he mean sayin’ that?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Jem said. “Ask Atticus, he’ll tell you.”

“Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” I asked him that evening.

“Of course I do. Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common.”

“It’s what everybody at school says.”

“From now on it’ll be everybody except you --”

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“It’s a peculiar case - it won’t come to trial until summer session. John Taylor was kind enough to give us a postponement,” Atticus explained.

“If you shouldn’t be defendin’ him, then why are you doin’ it?” I asked.

“For a number of reasons,” said Atticus. “The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not do something again.”

“You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and me wouldn’t have to listen to you anymore?

“That’s about right.”

“Why?”

“Because I could never ask you to listen to me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change . . . it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning.”

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Somehow, if I fought Cecil I would let Atticus down. Atticus so rarely asked Jem and me to do something for him, I could handle being called a coward for him. I felt extremely noble for having remembered, and remained noble for three weeks.

When supper was over, Uncle Jack went to the living room and sat. He slapped his thighs for me to come sit on his lap. I liked to smell him: he was like a bottle of alcohol and something pleasantly sweet. He pushed back my bangs and looked at me. “You’re more like Atticus than your mother,” he said. “You’re also growing out of your pants a little.”

“I reckon they fit all right,” I replied.

“You like words like ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ now, don’t you?”

I said I reckoned so.

“Well I don’t,” said Uncle Jack, “not unless there’s extreme provocation connected with ‘em. I’ll be here a week, and I don’t want to hear any words like that while I’m here. Scout, you’ll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?”

I said not particularly.

“Of course you do. Now let’s decorate the tree.”

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Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my deportment involved playing small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father’s lonely life. I suggested that one could a ray of sunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. She hurt my feelings and set my teeth permanently on edge, but when I asked Atticus about it, he said there were already enough sunbeams in the family and to go on about my business, he didn’t mind me much the way I was.

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“Francis, what the hell do you mean?” I asked.

“Just what I said. Grandma says it’s bad enough that Atticus lets you all run wild, but now he’s turned out a nigger-lover and we’ll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He’s ruinin’ the family, that’s what he’s doin’.”

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“What bothers me is that Scout and Jem will have to absorb some ugly things pretty soon. I’m not worried about Jem keeping his head, but Scout’d just as soon jump on someone as look at him if her pride’s at stake,” Atticus said.

I was waiting for Uncle Jack to break his promise. He still didn’t.

“Atticus, how bad is this trial going to be? You haven’t had too much chance to discuss it,” Uncle Jack asked.

“It couldn’t be worse, Jack. The only thing we’ve got is a black man’s word against the Ewells’. The evidence boils down to one man’s word against the others. And it just so happens to be a white man’s word against a black man’s. The jury couldn’t possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson’s word against the Ewells’.”

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10)

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square.

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“There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible,” Atticus told Jem.

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“Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.”

- Atticus Finch

ANALYSIS GUIDE - To Kill a Mockingbird

Directions: Use the quotes to answer the following question. Be sure to put the quote numbers in the space provide. For several of the questions, you will need to read a variety of quotes to get a complete answer.

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1. Who is Atticus Finch and what is he preparing to do? Why is this controversial?