Grade Levels: 6-8, 9-12

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the To Kill a Mockingbird Lesson Plan

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic To Kill a Mockingbird, and supports the standard of determining a theme or central idea of a text and analyzing its development over the course of the text. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

  • How might a writer’s experiences impact the themes in their work? 
  • How might readers’ own experiences impact their perceptions of a book? 

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the To Kill a Mockingbird topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the following articles: “In Depth” or “Laws and Customs” Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign To Kill a Mockingbird Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about To Kill a Mockingbird while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce a trailer for To Kill a Mockingbird that uses descriptions and images of its setting and major symbols to convey a theme of the novel.
  • Make-a-Map: Create a concept map analyzing how Scout evolves over the course of To Kill A Mockingbird in order to identify a major theme.  
  • Creative Coding: Code a museum exhibit about To Kill A Mockingbird with artifacts representing the novel’s symbols and themes.
  • Primary Source Activity: Analyze the  magazine article by Harper Lee and cite evidence to answer the accompanying questions. 

More to Explore 

Sortify: Writers: ​​Players sort by attribute, such as genre, time period, and more in this learning game.  

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of analyzing key ideas and details with these topics: Theme, Setting, Characterization, and Story Conflict.

Teacher Support Resources: