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Copywork
About This Passage
Atticus has just told the men outside the jail that Tom Robinson is asleep and not to wake him. Lee, through Scout's older voice looking back, names the strange contradiction at the heart of the night: a polite, hushed group of men preparing to do violence. Students copy this passage to feel how Lee uses adult vocabulary to mark the moral oddness of the moment.
In obedience to my father, there followed what I later realized was a sickeningly comic aspect of an unfunny situation: the men talked in near-whispers.
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Trace the chapter's path from the men in the Finch yard, to Atticus reading at the jail, to the strangers from Old Sarum, to Scout's intervention with Mr. Cunningham, to Mr. Underwood at his window. What changes in each of these moments?
Discussion Questions
- Atticus tells the men in his yard 'This is Maycomb.' Yet the next night, men from Old Sarum come for Tom Robinson at the jail. What does Atticus get right about Maycomb, and what does he get wrong, and why does Lee separate the friendly group from the dangerous one across two scenes?
- When Mr. Cunningham squats down and says, 'I'll tell him you said hey, little lady,' the whole crowd disperses. What had Scout, without knowing it, made Mr. Cunningham remember about himself?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
The act of doing what someone in authority tells you to do.
Item 2
Came after something else in time or in order.
Item 3
Came to understand something clearly, often after thinking about it.
+ 7 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
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