What are you reading these days? | Page 13 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I recently finished Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a great piece. We were reading it in my ninth grade English class, and we did a whole unit based on the book. I think it’s my new favorite novel. To be honest though, I haven’t read that many books, as I don’t read novels all that often during my free time—only for school really. Regardless, I loved every bit of the novel: the story, the themes, the symbolism, the diction, right down to the somewhat unusual punctuation.

Before we began the book in class, we did papers and presentations relating to the book and the factors that influenced it, such as the author and her life and the conditions that influenced it (e.g., the Great Depression and segregation and prejudice in the Deep South). We worked in groups, and each of us was given a subtopic to write and prepare a presentation about. My subtopic was the effects of the Great Depression. We submitted our papers individually before putting them together into one report. That way, we’d receive a grade for our individual effort. Everybody’s paper was returned covered in red ink with corrections and comments; mine was returned with zero corrections and an “impeccable job, Steven” from the teacher. To make it even better, two paragraphs I had to write after we started the book (alone, not related to the group project) both received a 10/10 grade with minimal corrections. And the icing on the cake was the text-based response at the end of the unit: the task was to identify a theme in a section of To Kill a Mockingbird provided by the teacher, and to explain how the author’s use of one literary element helps develop that theme. I got back a paper with a score of 100%, and the teacher called me over as I was leaving the classroom at the end of the period just to say how proud she was, saying I was “like a machine” in the way I passed the past few written exams with flying colors.

If I were to say I wasn’t trying to brag with my declaring my test grades, to an extent, I’d be lying.  My main objective, however, was to share what a great book Lee wrote (Do read it if you haven’t already.) and to show how quality reading materiel can make assignments easier to do well on and make class so much more enjoyable. If only all English classes were like that.

Father McCartney said
Well done you, AbbeyRoadRage.

Sounds to me like you’re terrifically astute. If you haven’t already, watch Robert Mulligan’s fine film adaptation of TKAMB, arguably the equal of the book, or close to it. It’s beautifully shot, scripted, performed (not least by the child actors), and Elmer Bernstein’s score is just exquisite.

Thank you, @Father McCartney.

And I will definitely watch that film. I’ve heard about Mulligan’s version before, but I haven’t got around finding and watching it yet. I’m glad to hear it does the book justice. Thanks for the reminder.