We all love Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird is not only a classic, it is a genuine favourite for most of us, and I am sure we have inspired many teenagers to love the novel as much as we do.
Do you know that Harper Lee wrote another novel before To Kill a Mockingbird, but her editor suggested she take the character, Scout, and set it in the past, which resulted in the multi-million selling novel we know and love so well?
Her agent has now decided, apparently with Lee’s consent, to publish her first novel (which is actually a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. There is a great deal of controversy around the publishing of this novel and, with this being the month that celebrates World Book Day, we thought you might like to share this real life drama with your learners and hopefully inspire them to read To Kill a Mockingbird, if they haven’t already read it, and the new novel, Go Set a Watchman, which will be released in July this year.
To get you started, please find a worksheet based on an article about Harper Lee and her ‘lost’ novel on our website. You will find a lot of additional information in this Washington Post article – it reads like a soap opera and your learners are sure to find the saga intriguing.
Happy teaching!
MacMo
Comments (5)
rose jackson
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Macrat Team
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rose jackson
It’s no wonder it wasn’t deemed fit for publication when it was submitted. But releasing Go Set a Watchman isn’t just a greedy move on the part of publishers. The book provides us with information that’ll be valuable to the way To Kill a Mockingbird is conceived. Whereas the latter classic paints an idealized picture of Atticus Finch, the former draft shows us that he’s complex, and deeply flawed, just like the legal system he represents.
Huffington post 15 July 2015
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Macrat Team
I think teaching 'Mockingbird' has just become even more fascinating!
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rose jackson
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