Hi all and thank you in advance.
I'm a UK teacher prepping TKAM for the first time. I have mixed feelings about the book but at the moment I have to teach it so I just want to do a good job. I would love someone with better background knowledge than me to just give a little feedback on these points. Thank you so much.
-
I'm really interested in poverty in the book as a social ill alongside racism. Is it fair to say that poverty in the South in the Depression was traceable back to the Civil War and Reconstruction as well as the Depression itself? The American Civil War is not widely taught here in the UK and I don't think this is on many teachers' radars, but the fact of Alabama being on the "losing" side and the collective memory of the Civil War seem quite relevant to the book.
-
To what extent am I right in thinking this is partly a "giving voice to the voiceless" type of book? From the viewpoint of 1960s America it might have been easy for some readers to dismiss a poor, racism-ridden town in Depression Alabama as beneath their worldview. Is it fair to tell students that in fact Lee is trying to crack open this image and present a three-dimensional view of the time and place?
-
One of the themes in the book seems to be that the apparatus of government — education, the courts — is faulty and does a poor job of people's actual lives. It isn't equal to the social problems on the ground. Is it fair to say this reflects a deeper mistrust between disadvantaged people and the state?
Would love any comments on these ideas. Thank you!
by Steppinthrax