The help

1. In your own words, write what was meant by "separate but equal." How did people in Jackson, Mississippi - including the ladies of the Junior League in "The Help" - try to apply this principle?

2. Do a simple online research about Jim Crow Laws. Identify what outcomes - forced upon domestic workers - were present in "The Help".

3. Explore the themes in "The Help" and develop your ideas by continuing the following sentence: "The maids in The Help took a risk by telling their stories. Even though they knew they could be shot to death in their front yards, they went ahead with the project. If people are not willing to take risks..."

 

1. They are all persons, but for some reason, they separate them, for example with the toilets.

2. This laws were trying to avoid the treatment that was being given to black people, almost slaves.

3. The maids in The Help took a risk by telling their stories. Even though they knew they could be shot to death in their front yards, they went ahead with the project. If people are not willing to take risks, the book of the prothagonist would never go out and people would never realize what was going on with the rasicism and all that stuff. This book and story telling opened the eyes to those close minded people.

Essay

We needed to make an essay about the choice of the author of having a little girl as narrative voice.
I had the best possible grade! A 7!!!

I developed the ideas and the different possibilities that the author could provide if Scout wasnt the voice

TKM Part 1 Analysis

1. What is the reason for the author's choice of a young narrator?

2. How does Jem and Scout's views of Boo Radley change during  part 1 of the book?

3. How do you think Atticus managed his role as a single parent?

4. Discuss race issues in part 1 of the book.

5. From your reading of part 1, What does To Kill a Mockingbird teach us about how people cope with issues of race and class? Do you classify people in your world as different "folks?" Do you see those sort of distinctions today? 

6. Who is your favorite character from part 1 and why? 

1. To show how the innocence of the point of view of a child to an adult world.

2. As they began to be more mature, they start looking at him more as a person than a ghost.

3. He did well, as he teaches his sons to be good people and teach them to be critical.

4. Mostly, the problem here was discrimination. Cecil Jacobs and Mrs Dubose are the ones incharged of showing this racist part to the book.

5. The discrimination today is nothing compared to those days. Personally I think all the different skin colors are the same, in fact, my New Zealand trip made me understand this. I have like 4 black friends in facebook now, and is not weird or something for me.

6. Scout, as she is smart and begans to understand the world slowly, being really curious. Scout is also like a "time machine", as she brings all the good things of this time to the time of the novel.

TKM Chapter 1 Analysis

1. What do you learn in this chapter about Maycomb, Atticus Finch and his family?

2. Describe Calpurnia as Scout depicts her in Chapter 1.

3. What does Dill dare Jem to do?

4. The townspeople of Maycomb have some fears and superstitions about the Radley place. Describe these fears and superstitions.

5. How important is bravery to Jem?

6. What do you notice about the narrative voice and viewpoint of the story?

 

I would like to answer all this in one idea.

Maycom Showed to be quite a boring town were poor action was seen, for that reason everytime something happens was important for the children. Thats why Dill dared Jem to go and touch the front door of the Radley place, they needed something to have fun on, and for this same reason, is why the children have invented that the Radley place is invaded by a ghost, Boo.

The viewpoint of the story is from a little girl, Scout, and changes as the story develops because Scout is everytime more and more mature.

To kill a mockingbird context

Context, can be important as we saw some posts below.
So, if we are examining a novel, is important for us to know wich is the context in wich this story was created.

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Among Lee’s childhood friends was the future novelist and essayist Truman Capote, wich was his inspiration for many aspects in the novel TKM and others. (Was an inspiration for him in general). These personal details notwithstanding, Lee maintains that To Kill a Mockingbird was intended to portray not her own childhood home but rather a nonspecific Southern town. “People are people anywhere you put them,” she declared in a 1961 interview.

Yet the book’s setting and characters are not the only aspects of the story shaped by events that occurred during Lee’s childhood. In 1931, when Lee was five, about nine "negroes" were accused for raping a girl, and about the half of them was found guilty even without prooving them guilty, it was  suspected that the women who had accused the men was lying.


Lee began TKM in the mid 1950s, after moving to New York to become a writer. She completed the novel in 1957 and published it, with revisions, in 1960, just before the peak of the American civil rights movement.

At that time, all these things were afecting the "atmosphere":
Civil war
Economic depression
The dust bowl
Racial segregation
Northern and southern differences in USA

Fonts: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/context.html
http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/mockingbird/historical.htm
http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/mockingbird/historical.htm

languaje and gender

You tell me, wich of the next brooms would you buy?
  Broom "Mansoo", its a broom

Broom "Bye Dirty Witchy", magical powers for your kitchen

I bet you would buy the second one, because of the girl in it, mostly.

Gender is used in publicity almost always, using the stereotype of the girl/man/type of person that will use the product.

Makeup line "400 elegant"

Makeup line "raise"

Again the same question.

Complex texts x.x

We were told, a few weeks ago, to read two complex texts from very complex novels, "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Tomasi and "Notable American Women" by Ben Marcus.

They were reaaaaly hard for us to understand, I barely understood some words.
This shows us:

• "Reading is not simply a decoding of letters and words but a process through which we understand what a text or author is suggesting and what the words mean"
• "We all bring knowledge and experience to our reading of the text"
• "To be an informed reader is to be a reader who may know it is impossible to know and understand everything about a work of literature, but who understands the forces on an author, on the meaning and interpretation of a work, and on his own personal reactions"

Voicethread coloured radio activity

(I don't know why, my computer wont access voicethread, so I recorded myself in my own computer and put the download link of the audio file in .WMA)
To download the voice file, go to this link:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/90384425/black%20trial.wma


In case you need it .mp3 (because I dont really know if IMacs can read that sound file), you can post it in the comments and I will post the link for the mp3 version)



Terrible, terrible, terrible.
The astonishing case of Tom Robinson, coloured man accused for raping the daughter of Bob Ewel, a farmer in
the local city of maycomb was found guilty by the jury.

Several negroes are accusing racisism in the decition and strongly defend that the evidence shown by the
lawyer Atticus Finch is enough to proove him innocent.

"Atticus Shown Tom didn't do it, show that he was innocent and that was not even possible for him to do so,
this jury is filled with racisism. Is not ethic that a black man is placed in fron of a jury filled with
white, the jury must be grey." Stated one of the members of the black community that assisted the trial.

Several hours of pain, hope, unhope, illusion and broken dreams were suffered inside the tribunal, and
has been the hardest case that the jury have ever had, as one of the members said in yesterday's
newspaper interview.

Look, I am a colored man, but would this make me a criminal? I mean it. Its not moral that the jury is all
white, because there, the racisism involves in its decition. Why is important he colour of the skin?!
God created us all, and love us all, just some people are not able to understand it.

Just to give an example, i personaly heard in the morning a white radio, saying that the result was
awesome and trating tom robinson as a "bastard nigger". In my opinion, this must stop.

Boo Radley's diary

April 13th, 1931
              Dear diary:
                               It is weird that this these children I see treat me like a man, like a person, more like a ghost as most people treat me and see me. I... I think I like this children, I would like to experiment what do they think of me and how do they see me.
                                But I won't be able to do so if any of the kids get seriously injured, like what this guy... what's his name? Bob Ewel wants to do. I know that Bob is planning to hurt this kids because he wants to take vengance of Atticus.
                              I won't let him or anybody else hurt the children that saw me like a person for the first time. The only way I can be sure that these children are healthly and all good is following them and protecting them, everywhere. The danger may be after every corner, and I will not loose the only thing that I've ever cared about for me not doing nothing! I will protect this children and I will find out what do they think of me!

April 30th, 1931
             Dear diary:
                              Is incredibe the astonishing amount of problems these children get in! They had entered to black balconies in it's father court, they have been in black places drinking alcohol (at least, i saw them drinking something inside a paper bag, I think it is alcohol).
                              The other day, I was seeing them eat at miss Mudie's house, and a friend of her entered the room after the kids left, saying that Bob has accosed Atticus in the morning, saying he will take revenge. I need to be more attentive than i've never been, i a not going to let Bob get to this children!

May 21st, 1931
             Dear diary:
                          Today, after the party... Bob attacked the children. Luckily I was there in the forest and stop him, but i could not stop him from hurting Jem. I took him home, leaved him on he first bed I saw, and when I was about to go... I heard Atticus' steps. I ran and hide behind the door. I was there for hours, waiting for all of them to leave, but they keep arriving the medic, the detecive, Atticus and Scout. I could not go out.
                          There was when Scout saw me, she closed the door, showing my position, and I saw her closely o the eyes for the first time. That second my heart stopped, Would she like me? Would she ran scared? But I recovered the breath instantly as I saw her smile, arising in his face. Then we had a moment to... share looks in her swing, I was to shocked to talk, but it was nice to finally see that this childre really like me and that they now see me like the real person I am.

different experiences

My bigger experience with other cultures and razes definitively was when i was in new zealand, there i could share with a lot of black and yellow people that here in chile we don't usually see.
Before NZ, i had no black or chineese friends, and for me, chineese, corean and japaneese was all the same.

After new Zealand, in my facebook I added at least 5 black friends and 4 corean and 3 chineese, and one japaneese. I serously amply my horizon to new limits i've never expected. Now, for me, seeing a black or yellow person doesn't make any feeling in me than any other white person would do.
I am really happy i could do that journey, that marked a "before" and an "after" in my life.

TKAM activity

Ch. 12

1. Comment on Jem's and Scout's visit to First Purchase Church. What does Scout learn about how black people live?

2. Explain why Calpurnia speaks differently in the Finch household, and among her neighbours at church.

Ch. 13

3. Aunt Alexandra thinks Scout is "dull" (not clever). Why does she think this, and is she right? 

4. How does Aunt Alexandra involve herself in Macomb's social life?

5. Comment on Aunt Alexandra's ideas about breeding and family, in contrast to Atticus' visions. Who's right, do you think? Why?

Ch. 14. 

6. Comment on Atticus' definition of rape. How suitable is this definition as an answer to Scout?

 

ANSWERS:

1. Some were welcoming and really kind to them, in contrast to the low amount of money and education they had.

2. She needed to speak as other black people, instead of proper english as other white people, because other black people would thought she was atheist.gtvf

3. Because she doesn't belive Scout act's like other girls.

4. Talking good of her family, and being really prod of them.

5. Aunt Alexandra always speaks about her family as if they were a diamond, but she treas Scout badly, I think that is the reason why Atticus thinks the opposite of her.

6. He did what he belived correct, he always had teached scout directly and withouth "rounding" the situation, and i think is good that he continues with the same idea of teaching. Apart from the fact that Scout is enough mature to understand it.