Each group is making a Thematic Poster that supports evidence from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. As there are several components to your posters, the students needed to segment their poster paper into the FIVE categories.
These are the themes from which each group could choose:
The Coexistence of Good and Evil
The Importance of Moral Education
The Existence of Social Inequality (Classes)
The Importance of Perspective (Point of View)
The Loss of Innocence
True Courage
The Existence of Racial Inequality
A. SILENT DIALOGUE about Theme (each group selected one theme taped to the front board and tape it to the top of your poster as a heading): This first portion of the activity is done silently, THEN discussed as a group before moving on to the next part. Each person takes a turn SILENTLY adding a sentence in an effort to explain the selected theme. One person starts, and then the next must respond to what the previous person wrote by adding some additional insight/idea spurred by what was written. All comments must be text-based (not necessarily quotes, but simply referring to significant events as support). Here are ideas for sentence starters:
This might be true, but it’s also true that ________________.
I agree with this because _______________________.
I disagree with this because ________________________________.
While those may be Lee’s words, I believe she really means ___________________.
B. Explain how the quotation (selected by your group from those taped to the front board and tape it onto your poster) supports the group’s theme (see above). Again, each person adds one sentence to the written response. Be sure to refer to events in the text when responding.
C. “The quote and/or theme reminds me of…” Each person will write two sentences that begin with that sentence starter: the first sentence makes the connection to something OUTSIDE the text (current or life event, or something from another piece of literature), and the second explains the connection between the two.
D. Share your answer from one of your homework questions (each group is sharing one of the homework question choices, which are taped slips of paper to the board; go take one and tape it onto your poster). Each person must add a sentence to the written response from his/her homework; however, the response has to work together to create a cohesive whole.
E. Vocabulary: Each person selects a new CHALLENGING word from the text (NOT from your vocab list already provided) and defines it (NO NOUNS…CHOOSE STRONG ADJECTIVES, VERBS OR ADVERBS). Also, the word needs to be used correctly in a sentence on your poster.
These are examples of some of the student posters, which each group had to present to the class while the rest took notes. In this way, each student ended up with notes about all of the selected themes for their class.
True Courage
The Importance of Perspective (Point of View)
The Existence of Social Inequality
The Existence of Racial Inequality
The Co-Existence of Good and Evil
Loss of Innocence
Binders Full of Evidence 14-15 