ENGL 51: Eleventh-Grade English 1 Portfolio Assignment 9.2 Chapter Questions from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird As you read the novel, you will be answering chapter questions in a minimum of two to three complete sentences for chapters 1–8 in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Answer the questions in the organizer chart below and submit the assignment with your portfolio. Save this file on your computer and type in your answers. Make sure you label everything clearly and include the chapter number and question before you type your answer. Save the document as YourLastName_PortfolioAssignment9.2.pdf (for example, if my last name was Johnson, my portfolio assignment file name would be: Johnson_PortfolioAssignment9.2.pdf) You will be submitting your questions and answers with your final portfolio. ENGL 51: Eleventh Grade English 1 Portfolio Assignment 9.2 Chapter Questions To Kill a MockingBird Chapters 1-8 Name: ____________________________________________________ Date: _____________________________________________________ Course Access Code: ________________________________________ Chapter 1: Summary Six-year-old Scout Finch describes 1933 Maycomb, Alabama, and discusses her family’s history. She briefly describes her family housekeeper (Calpurnia), her father (Atticus), and her older brother (Jem). She and Jem meet their new summertime neighbor, Charles Baker “Dill” Harris. The reader is introduced to the Maycomb legend, Boo Radley, and Dill decides that he wants to try draw Boo out. The children’s first attempt involves a dare for Jem. Chapter 1: Questions 1. What do you learn about Maycomb, Atticus Finch, and his family? 2. What do you learn about Dill’s character? 3. What, briefly, has happened to Arthur “Boo” Radley? 4. Why do you think the Radley place fascinates Scout, Jem, and Dill? Chapter 2: Summary Dill goes home to Meridian, and the children begin the school year, which is Scout’s first year at school. Jem makes it clear that Scout is not to associate with him at school. Scout’s excitement for school soon diminishes when she upsets the teacher by already knowing how to read. Miss Caroline’s first day of teaching is further disrupted when she quickly learns that not all students want to learn, and not all students are nice and polite. Scout unknowingly adds to Miss Caroline’s humiliation by explaining why Walter Cunningham has no lunch bucket and why he would refuse charity. All in all, it’s pretty much a bad first day of school for Scout. Chapter 2: Questions 1. Why is Scout so looking forward to starting school? 2. Why do you think Jem doesn’t want anything to do with Scout at school? 3. What do you think of Miss Caroline Fisher as a teacher? What are some qualities that make her good or bad at her job? Chapter 3: Summary Jem interferes when Scout shoves Walter Cunningham’s face into the schoolyard’s dirt. Scout is convinced it is Walter’s fault that she has had such a bad first day of school so far, and it is only lunchtime. Jem tells her to stop and invites Walter to their house for lunch. Scout meets with another difficulty when she scolds Walter for pouring syrup all over his food. She is sent to eat her meal in the kitchen with Calpurnia, who tells her that people who visit their home and eat with them can do what they are comfortable doing, and Scout will not interfere, regardless of who the company is. Miss Caroline is faced with the darker side of Maycomb’s community, and Scout decides never to return to school again after her miserable day. Atticus convinces Scout to compromise. Chapter 3: Questions 1. Who is Calpurnia? What is her place in the Finch household? 2. What does the way Atticus treats Walter reveal about Atticus’s character? Does Scout learn anything from Walter’s visit? What do you think this is? 3. Atticus says that you never really understand a person “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” What does this mean? Is this is an easy thing for Scout to learn? 4. What do you learn in this chapter about the Ewells? What are they like? Chapter 4: Summary Coming home from school one day, Scout finds two pieces of chewing gum in a knothole in the Radley’s live oak. Scout is still disappointed in her school experience, but before Dill comes back for another summer, Jem and Scout find a small, foil-wrapped box containing two polished Indian head pennies in the oak tree knothole. Later, when the three children are together, they develop a game of imitating the Radleys on the Finch porch, with each child playing a role in the Radley family drama. Somehow, to the children’s surprise, Atticus knows about it and orders the children to stop. Chapter 4: Questions 1. What does Scout think of current theories in education? 2. What superstitions do the children have in connection with the Radley house? 3. Why do you think the children make Boo’s story into a game? 4. What caused the laughter from inside the Radley house? Chapter 5: Summary Wanting information about Boo Radley, Scout goes to her neighbor Miss Maudie, a kind and good-natured neighbor who allows the children near-free reign of her yard. Scout questions Miss Maudie about Boo, and Miss Maudie provides some answers. Jem comes up with the idea of giving Boo a note by extending a note on a fishing pole through Boo’s window. However, their plans are interrupted by Atticus, who scolds them tremendously and orders them to stop tormenting the man. Chapter 5: Questions 1. Describe Miss Maudie Atkinson. How typical do you think she is of Maycomb’s women? What do the children think of her? 2. What does Miss Maudie tell Scout about Boo? How does this compare with what Scout already believes? 3. Scout claims that “Dill could tell the biggest ones” she ever heard. Why do you think Dill would have told such lies? 4. What reasons does Atticus give for the children not to play the Boo Radley game? Do you think he is right? Why do you think the children are so fascinated with the man? Chapter 6: Summary The night before Dill has to leave for home, the children plot to peek in Boo Radley’s window. However, while on the porch the kids are spooked by a man’s shadow and run away through the schoolyard. At their escape, Jem gets trapped in the fence and has to remove his pants. When they return, the children hear that Nathan Radley, Boo’s brother, shot at a “Negro” in the collard patch. Atticus notices that Jem has no pants, and Dill explains that Jem lost them while playing strip poker. Later that night, Jem goes back to retrieve his pants. Chapter 6: Questions 1. Why does Scout disapprove of Jem and Dill’s plan of looking in at one of the Radleys’ windows? 2. Jem wants to go back and get his pants so that Atticus doesn’t find out what they did. Why do you think it’s important to Jem that Atticus does not find out about what happened? Lesson 7: Summary Two weeks after the kids tried to peek into Boo’s window and Jem lost his pants, Jem admits to Scout that he found his pants neatly folded and mended across the fence that night. Jem and Scout find a ball of twine in the tree’s knothole, and they decide to watch to see if it is another kid’s secret hiding spot. Instead, in October of Scout’s second year in school, they find soap carvings of a boy and girl. They also find an old spelling medal, a pocket watch, a chain, and a knife. The children decide to write a letter, and leave it in the hiding spot. Lesson 7: Questions 1. What is it about the situation with his pants that perplexes Jem so much? 2. What evidence can you find that Jem is beginning to understand more than Scout about Boo Radley? Why do you think this is? 3. How are the children prevented from leaving a letter in the hiding place? Who prevents it and how? Why might he do this? Lesson 8: Summary Boo Radley’s mother dies that winter, and the next day it snows for the first time in Maycomb since 1885. Scout thinks it is the end of the world. Scout and Jem build their first snowman and create a caricature of another neighborhood character, Mr. Avery. Sadly, an enjoyable day turns tragic as Miss Maudie’s house burns down. Her house collapses, and the children watch outside, evacuated from their home. At some point in the night, Boo puts a blanket around Scout’s shoulders without her noticing. Lesson 8: Questions 1. Why do you think Scout quizzes Atticus about his visit to the Radley house? How much does Atticus tell her? 2. Why does Scout think it sensible of Atticus to save Miss Maudie’s oak rocking chair? 3. When Atticus asks Scout about the blanket around her shoulders, what does Jem realize? 4. Explain what Atticus means by telling Jem not to let his discovery “inspire” him to “further glory”? Is there any reason to believe why Jem might now do as his father says?