Chapter 1 Reading Check

To Kill a Mockingbird: Maycomb Map Collage Map of Maycomb (1935)

Points Work Ethic: You plan before beginning your visual. You use class time wisely, keeping extraneous discussion to a 10 minimum. You do not need to be reminded to stay on task. Detail: Your drawing/images of the community (especially starred items) should be detailed, incorporating specifics from 10 the book and world knowledge to produce clear pictures of the structures. Visuals/Color: Your visuals should be dark enough to see clearly and colors should be appropriate to the descriptions. 5 Accuracy: Your visuals should be accurate with the descriptions in the book. 10 Effort: Your drawing/collage should be clear and neat, reflecting your best effort and the amount of time allotted. 5 Total 40

Assignment: A thorough reading of To Kill a Mockingbird will give an appreciation of the author’s attention to detail in presenting the setting of her tale. While reading you should attempt to visualize what the town looks like. To help you visualize the town, your job is to create a detailed visual of the immediate surroundings of the main street on which the Finch family lives and the relative buildings. As an alternative to drawing these places (although you are welcome to), you can find pictures that fit the descriptions; a helpful site is American Memory, which has pictures from Alabama during the Great Depression. However, you can (and will) also use internet image searches to find such images. You will need at least 10 of the 14 locations.

While there is some room for creativity and interpretation, some aspects of the years, houses, and neighborhoods are clearly stated. For example, it is mentioned in the text that Miss Maudie’s house is two stories with a tin roof and front porch, and that it is across the street from the Finch’s house. This is clearly stated. But is the Finch house on the North, South, East, or West side of the main street? Fortunately, Harper Lee has included a very important clue in the setting: “We leaped over the low wall that separated Miss Rachel’s yard from our driveway. . . .[Jem] pointed to the east. A gigantic moon was rising behind Miss Maudie’s pecan trees” (Chapter 6). From this information we can deduce that since Miss Maudie lives across the street from the Finch residence, Miss Rachel lives next door to Atticus Finch, there is a low wall separating the houses and that Miss Maudie’s house is on the eastern side of the street and the Finch residence is on the western side of the street.

Read the descriptions of the buildings, landmarks, and other locations as a method of checking the accuracy of your drawing (Chapters 1 - 3 provided most of the answers). Be neat, colorful, and include labels for each landmark below:

 *Radley house  *School yard/fence  Miss. Maudie’s home  *Radley fence/yard  Mrs. Dubose's house  Miss Rachel’s house  Finch house  Town square (Main St. Post Office)  *First Purchase African M.E.  *Finch yard  *Jail Church  School  *Courthouse  Ewells/dump (before the Quarters)

This is a list of the pages that will guide you in the right direction: p. 7 "When I was almost 6 and Jem was nearly 10, our summertime boundaries (within calling distance of Calpurnia) were Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose's house two doors to the north of us, and the Radley Place three doors to the south. We were never tempted to break them. The Radley Place was inhabited by an unknown entity, the mere description of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end; Mrs. Dubose was plain hell." p. 8 “Routine contentment was: improving our treehouse that rested between giant twin chinaberry trees in the back yard…” p.9 “The Radley place jutted into a sharp curve beyond our house. Walking south, one faced its porch; the sidewalk runed and ran beside the lot. The house was low, was once white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to the color of the slate-gray yard around it. Rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away. The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard—a swept yard that was never swept—where johnson grass and rabbit tobacco grew in abundance.” p. 9-10 "The Maycomb school grounds adjoined the back of the Radley lot; from the Radley chicken yard tall pecan trees shook their fruit into the schoolyard, but the nuts lay untouched by the children: Radley pecans would kill you.” p.10 According to neighborhood legend, when the younger Radley boy was in his teens he became acquainted with some of the Cunninghams from Old Sarum, an enormous and confusing tribe domiciled in the northern part of the country…” p.18 "[Miss Caroline] boarded across the street one door down from us in Miss Maudie Atkinson's upstairs front room…" p. 37 "Two live oaks stood at the edge of the Radley lot; their roots reached out into the side-road and made it bumpy. Something about one of the trees attracted my attention…some tinfoil sticking in a knothole just above my eye level, winking at me in the afternoon sun." p.114 "When we were small, Jem and I confined our activities to the southern neighborhood, but when I was well into the second grade at school and tormenting Boo Radley became passé, the business section of Maycomb drew us frequently up the street past the real property of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. […] Mrs. Dubose lived alone except for a Negro girl in constant attendance, two doors up the street from us in a house with steep front steps and a dog-trot hall." p.134 "First Purchase African M.E. Church was in the Quarters outside the southern town limits, across the old sawmill tracks…Negroes worshiped in it on Sundays and white men gambled in it on weekends." p.136 “First Purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Along its walls unlighted kerosense lamps hung on brass brackets; pine benches served as pews. Behind the rough oak pulpit a faded pink silk banner proclaimed God Is Love, the church’s only decoration except for a rotogravure print of Hunt’s The Light of the World.” p. 169-170 "We went by Mrs. Dubose's house, standing empty and shuttered, her camellias grown up in weeds and johnson grass. There were eight more houses to the post office. […] The Maycomb jail was the most venerable and hideous of the county’s buildings." p. 184-185 “The Maycomb county courthouse was faintly reminiscent of Arlington in one respect: the concrete pillars supporting its south roof were too heavy for their light burden. […] To reach the courtroom, on the second floor, one passed sundry sunless county cubbyholes […]” p. 193-194 “Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin. […] One corner of the yard, though, bewildered Maycomb. Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums […]”