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Go Set a Watchman Infographic Assignment

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Go Set a Watchman Infographic Assignment

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Go Set a Watchman - NY Times Book Review

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Go Set a Watchman - NY Times Book Review

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Books of The Times

We remember Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's 1960 classic, "To Kill a Mockingbird," as that novel's moral conscience: kind, wise, honorable, an avatar of integrity who used his gifts as a lawyer to defend a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in a small Alabama town filled with prejudice and hatred in the 1930s. As indelibly played by Gregory Peck in the 1962 movie, he was the perfect man - the ideal father and a principled idealist, an enlightened, almost saintly believer in justice and fairness. In real life, people named their children after Atticus. People went to law school and became lawyers because of Atticus.

Shockingly, in Ms. Lee's long-awaited novel, "Go Set a Watchman" (due out Tuesday), Atticus is a racist who once attended a Klan meeting, who says things like "The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people." Or asks his daughter: "Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?"

In "Mockingbird," a book once described by Oprah Winfrey as "our national novel," Atticus praised American courts as "the great levelers," dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal." In "Watchman," set in the 1950s in the era of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, he denounces the Supreme Court, says he wants his home state "to be left alone to keep house without advice from the N.A.A.C.P." and describes N.A.A.C.P.-paid lawyers as "standing around like buzzards."

In "Mockingbird," Atticus was a role model for his children, Scout and Jem - their North Star, their hero, the most potent moral force in their lives. In "Watchman," he becomes the source of grievous pain and disillusionment for the 26-year-old Scout (or Jean Louise, as she's now known).

While written in the third person, "Watchman" reflects a grown-up Scout's point of view: The novel is the story of how she returns home to Maycomb, Ala., for a visit - from New York City, where she has been living - and tries to grapple with her dismaying realization that Atticus and her longtime boyfriend, Henry Clinton, both have abhorrent views on race and segregation.

Though "Watchman" is being published for the first time now, it was essentially an early version of "Mockingbird." According to news accounts, "Watchman" was submitted to publishers in the summer of 1957; after her editor asked for a rewrite focusing on Scout's girlhood two decades earlier, Ms. Lee spent some two years reworking the story, which became "Mockingbird."

Some plot points that have become touchstones in "Mockingbird" are evident in the earlier "Watchman." Scout's older brother, Jem, vividly alive as a boy in "Mockingbird," is dead in "Watchman"; the trial of a black man accused of raping a young white woman, while a main story line in "Mockingbird," is only a passing aside in "Watchman." (Interestingly, the trial results in a guilty verdict for the accused man, Tom Robinson, in "Mockingbird," but leads to an acquittal in "Watchman.")

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"Go Set A Watchman," a follow-up to Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird." Credit HarperCollins

Students of writing will find "Watchman" fascinating for these reasons: How did a lumpy tale about a young woman's grief over her discovery of her father's bigoted views evolve into a classic coming-of-age story about two children and their devoted widower father? How did a distressing narrative filled with characters spouting hate speech (from the casually patronizing to the disgustingly grotesque - and presumably meant to capture the extreme prejudice that could exist in small towns in the Deep South in the 1950s) mutate into a redemptive novel associated with the civil rights movement, hailed, in the words of the former civil rights activist and congressman Andrew Young, for giving us "a sense of emerging humanism and decency"?

How did a story about the discovery of evil views in a revered parent turn into a universal parable about the loss of innocence - both the inevitable loss of innocence that children experience in becoming aware of the complexities of grown-up life and a cruel world's destruction of innocence (symbolized by the mockingbird and represented by Tom Robinson and the reclusive outsider Boo Radley)?

The depiction of Atticus in "Watchman" makes for disturbing reading, and for "Mockingbird" fans, it's especially disorienting. Scout is shocked to find, during her trip home, that her beloved father, who taught her everything she knows about fairness and compassion, has been affiliating with raving anti-integration, anti-black crazies, and the reader shares her horror and confusion. How could the saintly Atticus - described early in the book in much the same terms as he is in "Mockingbird" - suddenly emerge as a bigot? Suggestions about changing times and the polarizing effects of the civil rights movement seem insufficient when it comes to explaining such a radical change, and the reader, like Scout, cannot help feeling baffled and distressed.

Though it lacks the lyricism of "Mockingbird," the portions of "Watchman" dealing with Scout's childhood and her adult romance with Henry capture the daily rhythms of life in a small town and are peppered with portraits of minor characters whose circumscribed lives can feel like Barbara Pym salted with some down-home American humor. And it reminds us that "Mockingbird," the novel, was more concerned with the day-to-day texture of Scout and Jem's lives and the world of Maycomb than "Mockingbird," the movie, which focused more closely on Atticus and Tom Robinson's trial.

The advice Ms. Lee received from her first editor was shrewd: to move the story back 20 years to Scout's childhood, expanding what are flashbacks in "Watchman," used to underscore the disillusionment Jean Louise feels with the present-day Atticus, now 72. ("I'll never believe a word you say to me again. I despise you and everything you stand for.") Scout's disillusionment in "Watchman" oddly parallels that of Jem in "Mockingbird," after Atticus fails to get Tom Robinson acquitted, and Jem realizes that justice does not always prevail.

Another pivotal difference between the two books concerns the decision to make Scout ("juvenile desperado, hell-raiser extraordinary") the narrator of "Mockingbird" - a decision Ms. Lee executed with remarkable skill, managing the stereoscopic feat of capturing both the point of view of a forthright, wicked-smart girl (who is almost 6 when "Mockingbird" begins) and the retrospective wisdom of an adult.

Somewhere along the way, the overarching impulse behind the writing also seems to have changed. "Watchman" reads as if it were fueled by the alienation a native daughter - who, like Ms. Lee, moved away from small-town Alabama to New York City - might feel upon returning home. It seems to want to document the worst in Maycomb in terms of racial and class prejudice, the people's enmity and hypocrisy and small-mindedness. At times, it also alarmingly suggests that the civil rights movement roiled things up, making people who "used to trust each other" now "watch each other like hawks."

"Mockingbird," in contrast, represents a determined effort to see both the bad and the good in small-town life, the hatred and the humanity; it presents an idealized father-daughter relationship (which a relative in "Watchman" suggests has kept Jean Louise from fully becoming her own person) and views the past not as something lost but as a treasured memory. In a 1963 interview, Ms. Lee, who now lives in her old hometown, Monroeville, Ala., said of "Mockingbird": "The book is not an indictment so much as a plea for something, a reminder to people at home."

One of the emotional through-lines in both "Mockingbird" and "Watchman" is a plea for empathy - as Atticus puts it in "Mockingbird" to Scout: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view." The difference is that "Mockingbird" suggested that we should have compassion for outsiders like Boo and Tom Robinson, while "Watchman" asks us to have understanding for a bigot named Atticus.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Kind Hero of 'Mockingbird' Is Cast as Racist in New Book. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Review: Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' Gives Atticus Finch a Dark Side

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Books of The Times We remember Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's 1960 classic, "To Kill a Mockingbird," as that novel's moral conscience: kind, wise, honorable, an avatar of integrity who used his gifts as a lawyer to defend a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in a small Alabama town filled with prejudice and hatred in the 1930s.

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Go Set a Watchman - Three Writing Lessons We Can Learn

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Go Set a Watchman - Three Writing Lessons We Can Learn

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The beloved classic To Kill A Mockingbird has a sequel. Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee was released on July 14th. In its first week of publication, Go Set a Watchman sold 1.1 million copies, the most ever sold in a week by Harper Collins.

How Go Set a Watchman Was Written

The novel was actually completed in 1957 and was written prior to the famous To Kill A Mockingbird.

At first, publishers rejected it. In fact, Harper Lee's publisher asked her to revisit the plot and create a more focused story-line. Out of Go Set A Watchman, To Kill A Mockingbird was birthed.

Naturally, when the book came out I rushed to get it. A sequel to a classic deserves to be read. To read the first chapter of the book, check it out here.

"The spark of the true writer flashed in every line," said Tay Hohoff, her editor, after reading the manuscript in 1957. Despite the controversy behind the book's release, we can still see those sparks throughout Watchman, and take away an important lesson from a great writer.

3 Writing Lessons from Go Set a Watchman

Harper Lee's biggest success in Go Set a Watchman is how skillfully she crafts an unmistakable Southern tone.

I'm naturally a fast reader, sometimes even a skimmer, but as I read Go Set a Watchman, I found myself slowing, pausing, and feeling sucked into the slow Southern culture illustrated in the novel.

Here are three things we can learn about how to craft our own tone in our writing:

1. Culturally Specific Vocabulary and Jargon

Lee stays consistent in her vocabulary in order to facilitate a 1950's Southern atmosphere in her writing. Each word is tailored to the setting and character speaking. Lee uses words common at the time but which wouldn't be acceptable today ("negro," for example).

Another technique is using relevant jargon. Jargon is the special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group. While you should generally avoid jargon, especially when writing non-fiction, because it creates distance between you and the reader, Lee's use of Southern jargon helps saturate the reader in the scenes and culture of her setting.

For example, here's a quote that includes a few words most of us would find unusual unless we grew up in the South in the 1950s:

He was a short, square built, cotton-headed individual with the face of an angel and the cunning of a stoat.

What vocabulary or jargon does your story call for? Business? Religious? Cultural?
2. Deliberate Punctuation

Go Set a Watchman has very deliberate punctuation. It is a great example of how punctuation can cause your reader to pause, slow, or read quickly.

Here's an example of how Lee uses punctuation to control the reader's pace from Chapter 4 of Go Set a Watchman:

Instead, Maycomb grew and sprawled out from its hub, Sinkfield's Tavern, because Sinkfield made the surveyors drunk one evening, induced them to bring forward their maps and charts, lop off a little here, add a bit there, and adjust the center of the county to meet his requirements. He sent them packing the next day armed with their charts and five quarts of shinny in their saddlebags-two apiece and one for the Governor.

Lee's sentence structure varies with each sentence. In one paragraph there's a sentence with seven commas. The next sentence has none, but uses a dash instead to slow the pace.

A tone is easily developed when you use deliberate punctuation. This goal is not achieved simply because you used correct punctuation, but intentional.
What intentional punctuation do you like to use? Ellipses? Dashes? Short sentences?
3. Imagery

In my opinion, the first chapter of this book is actually the best because of it's stunning imagery.

The countryside and the train had subsided to a gentle roll, and she could see nothing but pastureland and black cows from window to horizon. She wondered why she had never thought her country beautiful.

This imagery fits almost perfectly to the feeling and setting Harper Lee is trying to attain. The imagery is slight, but also changes the reader's pace. As pictured, there is no rush within the characters dialogue or thoughts, allowing the reader to relax into the narrative.
How can you use imagery to sway your reader in a particular way?
The Controversy Behind Go Set a Watchman

There are three main points of controversy surrounding this novel and it's publication:

1. The Novel's Quality. Go Set a Watchman was actually written before To Kill a Mockingbird, and was rejected for being "more a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel." Its publication now has been questioned for being profiteering on the part of Harper Collins at the expense of the legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird.

2. Whether Harper Lee actually wanted the novel to be published. Harper Lee is now 88 years old, blind, a stroke survivor. For years, she resisted publishing Go Set a Watchman, or any other book. It's strange that now, shortly after her sister, who acted as her attorney, passed away, she agreed to publish her novel. Was she able to consciously make the decision in good faith?

3. Atticus Finch's Segregationist Politics. Atticus Finch is one of the great heroes of twentieth century literature, but in Go Set a Watchman, Jean "Scout" Louise struggles against her idealized image of her father and his segregationist politics. Apparently, Atticus, who is modeled after Harper Lee's father, was also a lawyer who believed segregation was better for both blacks and whites. He later changed his views and became a staunch supporter of the civil rights movement. But will Atticus' legacy be tainted by Go Set a Watchman's depiction of him?

While I'm not an expert and don't feel able to make a decision on whether this controversy is true or not, I did read the book and research quite a bit. Here are four articles from respected resources that shed light on the controversy:

Have you read Go Set a Watchman? What did you think of the novel? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

PRACTICE

Choose one of the three techniques Harper Lee uses and practice free-writing for fifteen minutes. Keep your tip in mind and use it as often as you can in your piece.

When your time is up, post your piece in the comments below and we'll guess your theme or tone!

Happy writing!

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3 Writing Lessons from GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee

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The beloved classic To Kill A Mockingbird has a sequel. Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee was released on July 14th. In its first week of publication, Go Set a Watchman sold 1.1 million copies, the most ever sold in a week by Harper Collins.

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BOOKLOVERS throughout the country, and around the world, have been reading in horror as the venerable hero of their youth, Atticus Finch, is portrayed in Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman as a stereotypical white Southern racist. Among other gems from this heretofore paragon of impartiality, we hear him explain to Scout: "the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people."

Much has already been made of the controversial circumstances surrounding the release of this book. As The Washington Post and others have reported, the 89-year-old Lee, who suffered a stroke in 2007 and now lives in an assisted-living home, never talked about wanting to publish it at all. Only after her 103-year-old sister died last fall did her current lawyer and international rights agent team up to announce the publication of Watchman, which has sold over 1.1 million copies to date.

Upon reading the book, the reasons for not wanting to publish it become apparent. Notwithstanding the claims of the publisher, Watchman cannot be read as a sequel to Mockingbird, but as a completely different book, a first effort by a novice novelist to get at the thorny issues of racism that she witnessed firsthand in her nevertheless beloved hometown. As Joe Nocera argues in The New York Times, the book cannot plausibly stand as a separate entity. It is simply Lee's first stab at writing about her family and the puzzle of race. It is apparent when rereading Mockingbird that she cannibalized certain aspects of Watchman when she created the second novel built to stand on its own - to replace Watchman - that a writer of two sequential novels never would do. For example, she provides very similar descriptions of the town of Maycomb's history, arising from a pig farmer named Sinkfield and a governor named William Wyatt Bibb.

Because Go Set a Watchman does not purport to be linked to Mockingbird as one Harry Potter novel to another, it does not make sense to link the fictional Atticus of one book to the other. The two novels are two efforts at getting at Lee's dichotomous experience of racism in the South: that the very people she grew up around and loved could be full of such venom and hate. But one aspect of Watchman has not generated as much commentary and was only hinted at in Mockingbird: the writer's proto-feminist rejection of the Southern ideal of womanhood.

Not only does Watchman's Jean Louise reject her smothering aunt's embodiment of demure, ladylike manners and her beau's instructions on how to keep a man (by never contradicting him), she also confronts her own father. As a former politician and esteemed lawyer, he is liable to, and does, beat her at the debate, much to the novel's misfortune. But for a novel written around 1957, long before The Feminist Mystique broke open the subject for a generation of writers, this aspect of Watchman reveals Lee's agenda in portraying a grown woman, herself, who challenges the female role she is supposed to play.

In Mockingbird, of course, we see Scout as a tomboy, wandering around in overalls, raised without a mother. But she is just a child, and her failure to conform to sexual stereotypes is accordingly much less threatening. What is fascinating, however, was Lee's decision to alter the case that her father had actually defended, in real life - a murder trial - with a rape case in her fiction. Perhaps unintentionally, Lee altered her past in order to expose the sexual construct of life in the South, in which the mere hint of accusation of raping a white woman was used for generations to justify the summary execution of black men, and in which the mass of Southern women led rigidly proscribed lives.

Like the Atticus in Mockingbird, the Atticus in the earlier Watchman was an attempt to represent her rejection of her town's casual racism. In Watchman, the second half is an almost unreadable series of speeches between Scout and various adversaries (including her uncle, her beau, and, of course, her father) regarding the men's participation in the Maycomb "Citizens' Council," a white organization dedicated to challenging the Supreme Court's attempt to desegregate the South. In so doing, Lee gives enormous space on the page to a series of arguments that look as feeble now as they doubtless seemed irrefutable then. (How could the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education forget the 10th Amendment? Isn't it obvious that if the Negroes have the right to vote then every county official will be Negro?) But the most unpalatable section of Watchman arises in listening to Scout herself agree with Atticus that "they're backward, that they're illiterate, that they're dirty and comical and shiftless and no good, they're infants and they're stupid, some of them, but we haven't agreed on one thing and we never will. You deny that they're human." If that was Lee's call to arms in Watchman, we all owe a debt of gratitude to her editor for suggesting that she refashion the story and focus on her youth.

What can we learn from the contrast? If Lee's overall motivation was to capture her hatred of racism in the South, what is the effectiveness of the devices in the one book over the other? In Watchman, she sets out to write a painfully direct confrontation with her father, which is all the more excruciating in her eventual capitulation to him in the final chapter. By contrast, what Mockingbird did, and did so well, was present counterfactual evidence to the biases of its time. If people thought Negroes were "shiftless and no good" (and, apparently, even Scout did at the time), what more sympathetic move than to show black characters who are faithful, honest, generous, and virtuous? And if even the most worthy Southern gentleman was running to the Citizens' Council and voicing his opposition to integrating the schools, what better counter-stereotype than to showcase a white lawyer standing with the wrongly accused black man?

The best antidote to a stereotype is to produce evidence contrary to that stereotype. Studies on implicit bias have shown that one of the most effective ways to combat racial bias is by presenting counter-stereotypical examples. Perhaps this is why Mockingbird is intuitively understood to present such a powerful argument to fight bias - even though commentators have long pointed out that even the Atticus Finch of Mockingbird was hardly a rabid activist for racial equality, having stepped up to represent Robinson only because a judge ordered it. However imperfect, Atticus Finch did not embody the stereotypical white Southern racist, just as Tom Robinson did not embody the stereotypes of his time. Both challenged our assumptions in a way that the popular culture of the time could understand and accept.

After she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, there was no need for Lee to publish Watchman - it had, after all, merely been an early effort that was abandoned after her editor encouraged her to focus on the young Scout. But even had Lee been tempted to rework Watchman so that it could become fully realized, the effort would have been for naught. Once Mockingbird was recognized as a classic of antiracism, the later Atticus could only do more harm than good. As we can see from the reaction to Watchman, it merely contradicts the more positive statements against racism that she made in Mockingbird. The message in Watchman, flawed as the book is, seems to be that even a lawyer willing to represent an innocent black man accused of rape in the 1930s was not willing to allow the Supreme Court to tell the South to end Jim Crow and force integration in the 1950s. And while that is of course the truth, it was (and is) such an ugly truth that it is hard to imagine it capturing the public's imagination in the way that Mockingbird did. To the contrary, as Lee probably guessed that it would, a racist Atticus Finch merely dampens the call to justice of all those who thought that, just maybe, another world was possible.

So while the Atticus Finch of Watchman is perhaps the believable older incarnation of the younger, it doesn't matter. These are works of fiction, first and foremost, in the service of a tall order: starting a national conversation on race. Lee succeeded in telling a tale to inspire generations of lawyers, as well as the wider public, to imagine the possibility of a different world, in which a Southern white man was willing to put aside his racism and provide the protection of the law to a black man, even though all those around him did not. But it is only with the publication of Watchman that we can see the extent of Lee's other agenda - to challenge the gender stereotypes that stifled her and led her to flee to New York. And while we can mourn that such a gifted writer did not produce another fully realized novel, we should honor that choice, and not try to evaluate Watchman as the sequel it is not.

¤
Anne Richardson is a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles. She is currently Associate Director of Opportunity Under Law at Public Counsel.

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What Can "Go Set a Watchman" Teach Us That "To Kill a Mockingbird" Cannot? - Los Angeles Review of Books

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BOOKLOVERS throughout the country, and around the world, have been reading in horror as the venerable hero of their youth, Atticus Finch, is portrayed in Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman as a stereotypical white Southern racist.

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Back in 2010, to honor the 50th anniversary of "To Kill a Mockingbird," we published a first version of this post. But this summer's release of "Go Set a Watchman" changes everything.

As an English teacher in Queens put it to The Times in July, "Whether you've read the novel or seen the film, there's this image you have of Atticus as a hero, and this brings him down a peg. How do you take this guy who everybody looked up to for the last 50-plus years, and now he's a more flawed individual?"

Whether you plan to teach "Watchman" or not, recent events in Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore, South Carolina and elsewhere make Harper Lee's themes more relevant than ever. And the discovery of the novel, as well as the suggestion that it was an early draft of "Mockingbird," make it a fascinating study in authorial intent and revision. As Ross Brenneman writes in Education Week, "Everything about this book is a gold mine for English teachers.

On Feb. 19, 2016, Harper Lee died, and readers around the world talked about how "Mockingbird" changed their lives. Below are six ideas for teaching the novel today, as well as many, many resources, new and old, for connecting Harper Lee and her work to the world around us.
Six Teaching Ideas 1. Atticus, Race and Reframing "Mockingbird" Through the Lens of "Watchman"
Just after "Watchman" was published, Isabel Wilkerson wrote a piece for the Sunday Review called " Our Moment of Racial Truth " in which she reflects on two icons - Atticus Finch and the Confederate flag - that "fell from grace" this summer:

For as long as many Americans have been alive, the Confederate flag stood watch at the South Carolina capitol, and Atticus Finch, moral guardian-father-redeemer, was arguably the most beloved hero in American literature.

The two symbols took their places in our culture within months of each other. The flag was hoisted above the capitol dome in April 1961, on the centennial of the Civil War during upheavals over civil rights. Atticus Finch debuted in July 1960 in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," a novel that British librarians would later declare the one book, even before the Bible, that everyone should read. Given life by Gregory Peck in the 1962 Oscar-winning film, Atticus Finch would go on to be named the top movie hero of the 20th century.

Nearly at once, both icons have fallen from grace in ways that were unimaginable just months ago. They are forcing a reckoning with ourselves and our history, a reassessment of who we were and of what we might become.

Does reading "Watchman" give teachers and students a new, perhaps less romantic, way to explore race in America at a time when the conversation has new urgency?

As Alexandra Alter wrote in July, "Watchman," which was completed in 1957, is landing in the middle of the debate on racism, inequality and the persecution of minorities in the United States "like a literary artifact out of a time capsule from a period when the country was divided over many of the same issues." She then notes:

After the initial shock, some writers and literary critics see added value in a more complex, and flawed, version of Atticus. If "Mockingbird" sugarcoats racial divisions by depicting a white man as the model for justice in an unjust world, then "Watchman" may be like bitter medicine that more accurately reflects the times.

Do you agree? Together with your students, look closely at the character of Atticus Finch as he is portrayed in both books. What are his attitudes toward black people? Why does he defend Tom Robinson? Does that defense make sense given the attitudes he professes in "Watchman"? In what ways is he a flawed lawyer? A flawed human? Is there any other kind? Can both Atticus Finches coexist in our minds?

What about Scout? How do her attitudes develop? Why do her revelations about her father so shake her? In what ways is she now an outsider? How does this affect her views on race and her tumult upon returning home? And, given that Harper Lee's father was the inspiration for Atticus, what does that tell us about the time and place in which the books were written? What can both still teach us today?

Finally, consider how Harper Lee portrays black characters in both books. (The scenes with Calpurnia are worth special examination here.) How, if at all, do you think it differs in the two novels? In what way is "Watchman" perhaps more accurate to Southern attitudes and politics during the 1950s? Does "To Kill a Mockingbird" "sugarcoat" reality?

On this blog, we have written frequently on how to talk about race and racism and other sensitive subjects in the classroom. In The Wall Street Journal this summer, Carol Jago, a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English (and a contributor to our blog) is quoted as saying that it takes skill to lead a discussion on race, values and literary characters, but the surprise in "Watchman" is "one of the best things that could have happened" to "Mockingbird." She continues:

"One of the reasons school is boring is because we avoid conflicts," said Ms. Jago, associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. "These are not easy conversations to have with students, but avoiding the conversation isn't going to get us closer to the nation that we want to be."

Do you agree?
2. "Watchman," "Mockingbird" and the Writing Process
Even the first chapter of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman," released ahead of the novel's publication in The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, revealed a very different book from "To Kill a Mockingbird." While the setting is the same, Jean Louise (Scout) is older, and the novel, rather than being told in the first person, is told in the third. The deeper a reader goes, the more changes - both subtle and not so subtle - accumulate.

It is widely believed that "Watchman" was a sort of first draft of "Mockingbird." If we take that as truth, teaching the two novels together might stimulate rewarding conversation about the writing process and particularly about the hows, whys, and whats of revision.

Somehow, Ms. Lee, took her editor's counsel and transformed the work into something new.

Choose (or have your students choose) and share excerpts that illustrate the power of revision. If you are reading both texts, ask students to keep track of any place where things feel very familiar. Where does it seem that Harper Lee mostly copied and pasted? Then ask them to note radical changes: What is completely different?

As you examine passages together, ask students to note the way these changes affect them as readers. Do they think the revisions make the writing better or make for a more successful novel over all? Do they make for a more satisfying reading experience? Why or why not? If the students were Ms. Lee's editors, what suggestions would they have made?

Make a list of some of the techniques Ms. Lee seems to have used (cutting, recasting, or changing point-of-view, for example) to jump-start a sort of "revision toolbox" for students to draw from as they revise their own work.

Finally, this funny piece by Merrill Markoe, " A High School Book Report on Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman', " might amuse you and your students as you compare the two novels. ("Jean Louise, who, like everyone, grew up reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' now realizes for the first time that her father is not the same Atticus Finch that he was in that book.")
3. Exploring the Controversial Provenance of "Watchman"
Though Ms. Lee seems to have been pleased to receive a copy of her new novel, the story of its publication has had "more build up and plot twists" than the novel itself. The Times columnist Joe Nocera goes so far as to call "Watchman" a fraud - an opinion the satirical paper The Onion played on in its article, " Harper Lee Announces Third Novel, 'My Excellent Caretaker Deserves My Entire Fortune.' "

As a part of teaching "Mockingbird," whether you are also teaching "Watchman" or not, you might invite students to examine how the book came to be published, and the ethical questions raised by its path to bookstores.

First, there is some question as to how and when the "Watchman" novel was discovered.

Next, from the beginning, there have been questions about Ms. Lee's ability to consent to the publication of her "lost" novel because of impaired health. Was she capable of making the decision to publish? Was that really what she wanted?

Finally, though there were reports that Ms. Lee was excited about its publication, its timing - just after the death of her sister and protector, Alice - has seemed suspicious to many. With Alice's absence, was she taken advantage of?

Use the Times Topics page on Harper Lee to explore the controversy as covered by The Times. Then create an annotated timeline by plotting events associated with the novel's discovery and publication and noting the questions they raise.

After reading the coverage and piecing together clues in the timeline, ask students what they think. Is "Watchman" a fraud? Did HarperCollins put its own interests ahead of Harper Lee's? Will this tarnish her reputation as a writer? Was " one great book enough "?
4. Coming of Age With Scout
In some ways, "Go Set a Watchman" completes the coming-of-age arc that "To Kill a Mockingbird" began. We watch as Scout grows from a six-year-old to a mature woman who has left home and returned: the classic hero's adventure.

Similarly, if we consider "Watchman" an early draft of "To Kill a Mockingbird," it becomes an artifact that helps us trace Ms. Lee's "coming of age" as a writer.

Ask students to examine the theme of coming of age in "Mockingbird," "Watchman" or another novel, by using an idea inspired by the opening credits of the 1962 film version of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

In it, you'll see a cigar box open and the camera exploring the various artifacts from what we suppose to be Scout's childhood. Ask students to choose a character from whichever book they are studying and fill a box with objects that represent pivotal points in that character's development. For each artifact, they should present a brief rationale for why they've included it. Have students present their boxes during a class gallery walk or other classroom activity.

Finally, you might want to read what one of our teenage Summer Reading Contest winners had to say about how Scout/Jean Louise comes to terms with a more complicated understanding of her father in "Watchman."
5. Applying Lines from Harper Lee to Your Own Life
Every student of "To Kill a Mockingbird" knows the Atticus Finch line "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." They also probably remember these famous lines:

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

and

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway, and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.

These lines have always offered lenses through which to examine the novel itself, as well as to look at our own lives.

In "Go Set a Watchman," Scout's uncle, Dr. Finch, echoing her father's words in "Mockingbird," tells her:

Every man's island, Jean Louise, every man's watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.

During the same conversation, he says:

The time your friends need you is when they're wrong, Jean Louise.

Have students choose one of these quotations - or any other that resonates with them - and apply it to their own lives in a personal narrative, perhaps using some of these rules for good writing collected from the Times.
6. What Should Everybody Read?
According to this survey, "To Kill a Mockingbird" tops the list of novels many believe everyone should read. Generations of children have been named Atticus after Scout's father. Though it has been frequently banned, it continues to be commonly taught to American students and has shaped countless young minds.

When Harper Lee died on Feb. 19, 2016, readers all over reflected on what the novel meant to them, and which scenes, in particular, have stuck with them. Here is one teenager's response:

"I have many memories of freshman year, some that I'd prefer to forget. But one I will always keep close is the memory of reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' It was the first book we studied, and its impact on my life was significant. The novel showed me the distinction between understanding others and imposing my views on them, and the transformative power of empathy. For, isn't that what literature is all about? Taking us on a journey of the trials and joys of the human experience, and guiding us through times where the distinction between morality is all too subtle? My academic experience has been markedly defined by the books I have read, and I am certain that if I can approach life with the same curiosity, empathy and joy that permeates 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' I will be a wholly better person."

- Janie Booth, 18, Durham, N.C.

What scenes in "Mockingbird" stand out most for you and your students? Why?

Actress Mary Badham, who played Scout in the movie adaptation starring Gregory Peck, hopes that "Watchman" will also become a classroom classic. Time will tell, but her hope prompts the question: What makes a classroom classic? Should "Watchman" join "To Kill a Mockingbird" on classroom bookshelves? If so, why?

Ask students to reflect on their histories as readers, asking them specifically about books that are so impactful that they should be required reading.

As a class, make a list. Then, talk about what makes something worth reading and worth requiring, referring to the titles you've listed. What should a student's school-reading experiences include? Why?

Then, ask students to write short, persuasive pieces advocating for the inclusion or exclusion of a selected book.
Selected Resources for Teaching Harper Lee, from The Times and Around the Web On "To Kill a Mockingbird" 1960 | Original Times review of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' 1992 | To Attack a Lawyer in 'To Kill a Mockingbird': An Iconoclast Takes Aim at a Hero 1998 | Long Lives the Mockingbird 2001 | Quiet, Please; Chicago is Reading. The Same Book at the Same Time. 2010 | To Killjoy 'Mockingbird' On "Go Set a Watchman" 2015 | Harper Lee, Author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Is to Publish a new Novel
2015 | Review: Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' Gives Atticus Finch a Dark Side
2015 | While Some Are Shocked by 'Go Set a Watchman,' Others Find Nuance in a Bigoted Atticus Finch 2015 | Looking Beyond Controversy as Readers Welcome Harper Lee's 'Watchman' 2015 | Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' Brings Division and Curiosity to Monroeville, Ala. 2015 | Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' May Have Been Found Earlier Than Thought 2015 | After Harper Lee Novel Surfaces, Plots Arise 2015 | Op-Ed: The Watchman Fraud 2015 | Op-Ed: Don't Do It, Harper Lee On Harper Lee
Times Topics Page | Harper Lee
Harper Lee, Author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Dies at 89 2006 | Harper Lee, Gregarious for a Day
2006 | A Biography of Harper Lee, Author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'
2015 | Harper Lee and Truman Capote: A Collaboration in Mischief On Film and Theater Adaptations of "Mockingbird"
1962 | Producers Accent Authentic Southern Ways in Adapting Novel to Screen (PDF)
1962 | Review of the Film: 'To Kill a Mockingbird' 1991 | Moments of Heroism and Hope in 'Mockingbird' 2002 | In the Arms of Memory 2010 | For Theater Troupe Without a Home, All the World's a Stage Related Learning Network Content
The New York Times
All of Our Resource Pages for Classic Works of Literature Text to Text: 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names' 50 Years of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' From Around the Web Harper Lee's website The Guardian | Harper Lee: The 'Great Lie' She Didn't Write 'Mockingbird' Rears Its Head Again Wall Street Journal | Teachers' New Homework: A 'Watchman' Plan The Indian Express | Re-reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird' After the Charleston Killings Smithsonian | Harper Lee's Novel Achievement The New Yorker | The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the Limits of Southern Liberalism The Atlantic | "To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee - A Classic Review (1960) LA Review of Books | What Can 'Go Set a Watchman' Teach Us that 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Cannot?
The Marshall Project | What Harper Lee Got Right
The Atlantic | 'Go Set a Watchman' Review: What About Scout? The New Yorker | Sweet Home Alabama, Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' Wall Street Journal | Harper Lee's Father, Inspiration for Atticus Finch, Changed His Views on Segregation For Teaching 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Go Set a Watchman' Facing History and Ourselves | 'To Kill a Mockingbird' The Big Read | 'To Kill a Mockingbird' EdSitement | Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird': Profiles in Courage Web English Teacher | Resources for teaching 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Newsweek | The Surprisingly Current Lessons of 'Go Set a Watchman' New England Association of Teachers of English Forum | 'Go Set a Watchman' Ed Week | So Do You Teach 'Go Set a Watchman' or What? Grantland | Humor: A High School Book Report on Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman'

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Amanda Christy Brown and Katherine Schulten

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Teaching 'Mockingbird,' 'Watchman' and Harper Lee With The New York Times

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Back in 2010, to honor the 50th anniversary of "To Kill a Mockingbird," we published a first version of this post. But this summer's release of "Go Set a Watchman" changes everything.

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This literature guide was created as part of an 11th grade project at Castle Park High School in Indiana. The students chose the book to read, produced a video book talk (link below) and wrote the following questions and project ideas to stimulate thought and action about real issues.
Book Talk for Miss Peregrine's Home
Pre-Reading

Questions:

1. Do you believe that there is such a thing as time travel?

2. Do you think there could be another type of person out there we don't know about?

3. Do you believe in monsters?

4. Do you believe in people having special powers?

Connections:

1. Write about an experience where you had to trust someone even if you thought it was a bad idea.

2. If time travel were possible, when and where would you go and why?

During Reading

Questions:

1. Page 26- How would you explain the friendship between Ricky and Jacob?

2. Page 29- It never explained what really killed his grandfather. Was it the "monster" Jacob saw in the woods?

3. Page 91- When Oggie doesn't remember one person surviving the bombing does this seem like he's hiding more? Use evidence from the text to explain your answer.

4. Page 99- Is his grandfather really all that crazy, or is what he told him as a kid really true?

5. Page 102- Does the bird symbolize something? Will it later lead him to the woman he's looking for to figure out more about his grandfather?

6. Do you think Jacob going through the loop so often is a good thing? Explain your answer. Pg. 196

7. What questions would you want to ask Miss Peregrine? Pg. 204

8. What was the problem with Jacob talking to the children about his time and where he comes from? pg. 205

9. How is Jacob similar to his grandfather? Use quotes from the text to support your answer. Pg 230

10. What are some of the problems that you think will come from Jacob and Emma seeing each other? Pg. 239

Connections:

1.) The events going on that are relevant with the actual time period is connected with World War II. The war that they constantly refer to within the story is World War II. This gives you better insight to what is going on and the somewhat factual events of the time and how they tie into the book itself.

2.) All the talents that the peculiars have remind me of superheroes. Some seem to be like powers you would see in a superhero movie or see in comic books. For example: Emma being able to create fire with her hands, and the older girl who can grow plants and manipulate them, and even Miss Peregrine, who can manipulate time and shape-shift into a bird.

3.) The island reminds me of the island in the movie, The Incredibles. It seems remote and small, with hardly any inhabitants, but yet there are things happening on the island that most of the world doesn't notice or know about.

4.) The oldest preserved body that was found on the island reminds me of what you would see in a museum today. When the book gives the description, I pictured in my mind the black, shrunken bodies of old Mayan cultures I've seen in glass boxes at museums.

5.) The old orphanage home reminds me of the movie, Monster House in the way the main character describes it. In the way it seems to still be alive but is so run down. The way he describes the feeling as if the house swallows him when he enters gives characteristics like the monster house had.

Post Reading
Questions:

1. How could Jacob and Emma have approached "Dr. Golan" differently to have had a different outcome in saving the birds?

2. What were some of the motives behind "Dr. Golan" and the other wights?

3. What are some of the problems of Jacob's decisions about staying?

4. What do you see as other possible outcomes for what happens with the children, the loops, and Miss Peregrine?

5. What effect did the photographs have on how you experienced this novel? In fact, what was your reading experience of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? How did it make you feel? Were you disturbed...or fascinated...or something else? Did the book hold your interest? ( www.litlovers.com)

6. In what way can this book be seen as a classic quest story-a young hero who undertakes a difficult journey and is transformed in the process? Do you see parallels with other fantasy works involving young people? ( www.litlovers.com)

7. Research Joseph Campbell's idea of "A Hero's Journey". In what ways is this story a good example? Are there any ways in which it departs from this genre?

Connections:

1. The time loop in the book is in a way like Platform 9 ¾ in Harry Potter. Both rely on going through a specific point in order to get to another so called "dimension".

2. The pictures presented throughout the book could be looked at as things you would see in an old freak show or traveling circus. In other ways, they could seem almost paranormal, like in documentaries about hauntings and/or myths and legends.

3. The "wights" can be compared to Nazi soldiers and the movie Captain America. Especially in the last few scenes of the book where they see the U-boat filled with "wights" to take them away. The similarities include killing and torturing specific kinds of people to support their own beliefs, trying to take the world for their own, and seeing out a certain people as the ideal race.

Activities

1. One could go hunting for old snapshots and photographs from collectors or stores like Goodwill like the author did and create your own story around the picture.

2. You could contact a local orphanage and ask to plan an activity with the kids, such as story-telling.

3. You could contact an orphanage and also donate money or fundraise for them to help them.

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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Literature Guide

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This literature guide was created as part of an 11th grade project at Castle Park High School in Indiana. The students chose the book to read, produced a video book talk (link below) and wrote the following questions and project ideas to stimulate thought and action about real issues.

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Station Eleven - Teaching Resources (University of Oregon)

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Station Eleven - Teaching Resources (University of Oregon)

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Welcome! Here are some resources to guide your reading or to inspire your teaching. This page will be updated as more resources are discovered.

Found something you think should be here? Email it to commonreading@uoregon.edu!

Resources for Reading:

Abrams Teacher's Guide to The Best We Could Do provides valuable curricular ideas and guidance for those considering incorporating the book into their teaching or programming.

ms Pronunciation Guide is a useful tool to keep nearby as readers navigate the book.

Visit Thi Bu i's own website to learn more about the author and her other works.

Go Further:

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Welcome! Here are some resources to guide your reading or to inspire your teaching. This page will be updated as more resources are discovered. Found something you think should be here? Email it to commonreading@uoregon.edu! Abrams Teacher's Guide to The Best We Could Do provides valuable curricular ideas and guidance for those considering incorporating the book into their teaching or programming.