This is maybe the 20th time I’ve taught “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It’s maybe the 30th time I’ve read it. Yet, each time it relates differently to me. How’s that for reader response theory?
So far I’ve got one student who has already the whole thing. I think, though, I have a student or two who haven’t read a page. I think most will read the whole thing, but I’m under no illusions that they’ll all finish it.
I always like to note the students’ reactions. Each time I read it, the book becomes funnier. But most students miss the humor. When Scout tells her uncle, “That’s a damn lie” when he tells her he feeds his cats fingers are ears from the bodies he works on as a doctor, I chuckle and grin, some students chuckle too. Most seem confused.
Part of this is that our society has lost its sense for subtle humor. The students’ humor seems to range from absurdity, lighting your testicles on fire (see the “Jackass” films) to the pseudo intellectual rants (like those of The Daily Show on Comedy Central ). The genuine subtle humor of “To Kill a Mockingbird” is so far beyond most of them. If I were to slip going up to the white board, I’d get many more laughs than when Scout asks Atticus to “pass the damn ham” at dinner. If a student were to punch his buddy in the balls, they’d laugh harder than they do at the Scout wishing her father was a devil from hell because he is just so boring.
I know there are eternal truths built in to TKM. But it’s never been a struggle like this to get the students to connect to them. So many just can’t relate to the world of the novel. Maybe it’s time to pick a more modern selection?
I love TKM because it relates so very well to all of the stories we read to lead up to it. When Atticus talks about having to accept the Robinson case despite the uproar it will cause and the fact that he’ll lose, he tells Scout, “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 to do something again,” I think of the hypocrisy inherent in “Young Goodman Brown” and how differently Goody, the Minister, and Deacon Gookin look in the forest than they do in Salem. When Jem’s rage builds when Miss Lafayette Dubose taunts Scout and him and he loses it finally and thrashes her camellia bushes with Scout’s baton, I think of Johnson from “Like a Winding Sheet” and how his tension builds and builds until it consumes him and he batters his innocent wife. When Scout thinks “After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I” despite wearing jeans under her dress at a lady’s lunch, I think of “Doe Season” and how Andy goes deer hunting with her father and his friends and after killing a doe, she flees refusing to be called Andy, preferring her full name, Andrea. When I read about Mr. Link Deas standing up for Tom Robinson’s wife when Bob Ewell stalks her, I think of Tristan bashing in a bartender’s head when he refuses to serve One Stab, a Native American, in “Legends of the Fall.” In short, if pretty much connects to everything. Which is why it’s so damned cool.
It also connects to me differently each time. This time the part that resonates with me this time is how Atticus is able to find the best in people, no matter how ignorant, poor, or rotten they are. He knows each person has something worthwhile inside. That’s one reason he always tells Scout to try someone else’s skin on and see what the world looks from there.
This ties right into my classes. I know that many will fail. Even more won’t read more than a chapter or two of the novel, but that doesn’t mean their worthless. I have to remember to see what things look like from their eyes - spring is coming; part time jobs; baseball, tennis, track, and softball; prom; senioritis . . . all of these take precedence over American Lit. I suppose I could beat myself up trying to get them to read and giving reading check quizzes just like Atticus could beat himself up preaching his beliefs in public. But he doesn’t. He accepts people for whom they are. As Atticus says when Scout asks him if he is, as he's been called time and again by so many others, a "nigger lover," and he replies, "I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody . . I'm hard put, sometimes." He looks for the best and deals with the worst.
That’s what I’ve done in here. David, and his Godzilla feet, are going to fail. Justin will fail too. But they're nice kids. I've no doubt they're, well to borrow from a ZZ Top song, beer drinkers and hell raisers out of class, but they come to class every day and add their thoughts and laugh. They don't do their work. David nods off. Justin always pays attention. And he always folds his assignments up and puts them in his back pocket. He also reads at an elementary school level and writes there too. But they're good kids.
I want my students to be outstanding, eager. And a few are. Kyrie brings the novel home and reads diligently. Her homework is always done. She never says a peep. Jeremy laughs and does his work right before the bell, but his questions are dead on and he enjoys writing responses. Melda missed a lot of time early but now the work is pouring out of her.
Most are kids. But just kids. And kids aren’t always interested in what I’m selling this time of the year.
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