8 Fresh Ideas for Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird

8 Fresh Ideas for Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

By Tracee Orman

Are you teaching To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee this year? Whether it’s your first time or your 20th time teaching it, I’m sharing some of my favorite ideas to engage your students and keep up the momentum while reading.

If you’ve taught the novel before, you know that there are some parts that can seem to be a slog to get through, which is why pacing is key. Some chapters deserve more attention than others. I created a student workbook that breaks up the activities and questions by chapter, but naturally combines some chapters that allows you to move more quickly through them. Other chapters have their own activities, forcing students to take more time. 

Incorporating a mix of creative activities and critical-thinking questions is the key to keeping your students engaged and learning. Here are some ideas to keep things fresh in your unit and students engrossed:

1. Interactive notebook activities

Include some hands-on interactive notebook activities, or use one for the entire novel. Studies have shown that students using physical, tactile activities help them learn and retain information better. My interactive activities combine creative and critical-thinking skills and definitely keeps things fresh. I include over 90 activities--some specific to the chapters and some that can be used with any chapter--so you can pick and choose which ones you use. My students really enjoyed the time they had adding to their notebooks. As a bonus, I let them use their notebooks on the final test, so the more detailed they were for each activity, the more it benefitted them in the end!

To Kill a Mockingbird Interactive Notebook Activities

2. Incorporate Drawing

Having students visually describe what we’ve read is not only creative, but requires them to read closely for details, then process that information into a visual depiction. This first time I ask this of students is in chapter one when Jem describes what he thinks Boo Radley looks like. This activity builds the mystery around Boo and also shows stereotyping. I have students display their depictions while we read the novel. We always circle back to them after the big reveal at the end of the novel to reinforce the themes. Find my pre-made activities here.

Boo Radley Depictions

3. SUMMARIZE WITH A MEME

Students love memes, so break up the monotony of activities every once in awhile with a meme chapter summary. The beauty of a meme is that they truly have to understand the content in order to make a joke of it. This may require some rereading (which is AWESOME). Some memes they create you may have to have them explain to you because it can be hard to stay up on all the teen slang and fads. But it helps YOU understand them, as well. Chapters that are good for this type of assignment include (but definitely not limited to): 2, 3, 6, 10, 13, 15, 24, 29, 31. I recommend choosing two or three (at most) chapters to assign this. 

To Kill a Mockingbird Memes (included in my unit)

4. Sentence Starters

Sentence starters are an easy way to have students relate to the text personally. Start with the characters and their motivation. What would your students do in their place and why? For example, give students these stems to complete:

If I were Scout, I would... because...

If I were Jem, I would... because...

If I were Dill, I would... because...

You can be even more detailed, specific to the chapter. For example:

(Chapter 6)

If I were Jem, I would go back for my pants because... or

If I were Jem, I would not go back for my pants because...

(Chapter 9)

If I were Uncle Jack, I would have spanked Scout because...

If I were Uncle Jack, I would not have spanked Scout because...

They can be great ways to start a class discussion and have students share their own opinions and experiences. Find my pre-made sentence starters for TKaM here.

5. Comic Book Panels

My students really love turning anything into a comic book. Even those that just use stick figures or quotes only, it’s a great way to review and process the events and character motivations in a chapter. I have templates that can be used for any story or you can find chapter-specific prompts and panels in my creative activities pack for TKaM.

6. One-Pager with a Twist

One-pagers are a great way to have students creatively summarize key themes, quotes, symbols, characterization, and events in a novel or story. But sometimes filling an entire page can seem intimidating. Have students select a letter in the alphabet to represent one of the characters and create a one-pager letter. You can have them draw their own letters and cut them out or use my templates and rubric.

Character Letters One-Pager

7. Magic 8-Ball Predictions

Having students make predictions keeps the momentum going. If you happen to have a Magic 8-Ball, it makes a perfect prop for this exercise. If not, no worries. I have incorporated the activity into my student workbook and also have a stand-alone pack that can be used with ANY novel or story. Use the responses from the Magic 8-Ball (such as “Outlook Not So Good,” “It Is Certain,” and “Reply Hazy, Try Again”) and have students come up with questions for those responses. 

For example, after chapter 6, students might come up with this question for the response “Cannot Predict Now”: Will Atticus find out the truth about the kids sneaking onto the Radley’s?

Or Is Boo leaving the gifts in the tree for the kids? for the response “Most Likely.”

It’s a fun twist on having students making predictions and inferring.

Magic 8-Ball Activity from Student Workbook

8. Student-Created Escape Room Activity

After reading the novel, escape rooms are a fun way for students to review. But what if you had THEM create the challenges? It is amazing what they can come up with and makes the activity even more meaningful. Split up your class into groups and have each group create one station/challenge. You can give each group a section of the book to cover OR have them focus on a literary element (characters, plot, theme, setting, author’s style/tone, structure/scope, figurative language, etc.). Their challenges can be made up of puzzles, questions, physical challenges (one year I had students try to get a note through a shutter with a fishing pole), etc. Let them be creative! Then have each group attempt the other group’s escape challenges. 

I hope you’ve found some fun, fresh ideas for your To Kill a Mockingbird unit. All of the linked activities (besides my character letter one-pagers) can be found in my Mega Bundle, which is growing and will have new things added.

To Kill a Mockingbird Complete Literature Teaching Unit by Tracee Orman

Additional activities and resources:

• To Kill a Mockingbird Escape Room by Presto Plans

3 AI-Proof Literary Analysis Projects for Middle & High School English

By The Daring English Teacher

I vividly recall being in my classroom after learning about AI for the first time. I was curious about its capabilities, so I typed in one of my Lord of the Flies essay prompts, and Voilà, there it was. I mean, it wasn’t perfect, and it didn’t have direct quotes, but there was the five-paragraph essay in a matter of seconds that usually takes my students multiple days to complete. 

That was in the fall of 2022. I remember showing other teachers in my department this during our regular English department meeting. Immediately, we knew we had to change our teaching practices…again.

It has taken time to adjust to teaching in a world with AI, just like how it took time to adjust to teaching with class Chromebooks and smartphones. And while there is no end-all-be-all solution that works perfectly for everyone, I’ve found that going back to paper works—or at least it works for now. 

Since that moment when I realized that everything I’ve done as an educator would have to change, I’ve slowly made adjustments to my teaching practices to ensure that the work being turned in is that of my students’ minds and not a large language model.

Here are some things that are working for me as a high school English teacher:

• Putting the Chromebooks away - Yes. The Chromebooks and digital assignments are easy to assign and easy to grade (some of them are even self-grading and will send to my gradebook immediately); however, that is where students use AI-enabled extensions. 

• Going back to paper-and-pencil essays - It is tough to read, but having students write their thoughts, even if it is their first draft, on paper is helpful to ensure the thinking is their own. 

• Using lockdown browsers for in-class essays - Whether you have your students type an entire essay at a time or just a paragraph, I’ve had great success with lockdown browsers. Sure, some students will inevitably find workarounds, but not many. I use the lockdown browser embedded in Canvas (my school’s LMS); however, I’ve also used managed Google Forms for writing.

• Adjusting class assignments - This has been the biggest challenge. It has taken hours upon hours of thinking, brainstorming, trying, failing, and trying again to readjust how I do assignments and group projects. I think I’ve figured it out, though. I’ve created three literary analysis group projects that, if done correctly, eliminate all student AI use in the classroom. 

Three (AI-proof)  Literary Analysis Group Projects

I intentionally designed these three group projects to take place over the course of several days in class with students using paper only. To help eliminate AI from creeping into these projects, I ensure that student Chromebooks are put away, students' backpacks are zipped up, all phones and smartwatches are put away, and I collect the work each class period and redistribute it to student groups at the start of class. I also make sure students don’t use rogue papers that were brought in from home. Yes, it is a lot to manage, but knowing that the work comes from the students helps. 

Literature Mini Debates

I used this mini debate project as a culminating project for my Hamlet unit at the end of the last school year, and it was a hit! However, I also have a generic resource that I designed to work with any piece of literature.

For this final project, students are partnered together and given a topic relating to the novel. Student pairs work together, research, and prepare for a debate about that topic. The mini debates are quick. Students have a brief opening statement, rebuttal, and closing statement to prepare for…and I encouraged no notes. Since the topics are so specific, I informed my students that they needed to be experts in their subjects. 

For the actual debate, I grouped the student pairs with another pair, so four students presented at a time. They wrote down all their brainstorming and statements on paper, practiced together in class, and I even had the students do a dry run together. 

This unit also comes with a brief slide deck teaching students about the debate process and a link to a YouTube video that times the debates for the students!

Literary Analysis Group Podcast

This podcast project is another project that I’ve had to tweak over the years to accommodate for the AI intrusion in the classroom. At first, students worked on this project and recorded it on their own using only their Chromebooks. However, I switched it up recently, and now students “live record” their podcasts. That just means they pretend to record it live in class in front of the students. 

For this project, students choose a literary analysis focus for their novel and create a podcast based on it. I allow my students to be themselves on the podcast, or they can even make up personas. Some choose to be experts in their fields, and others choose to be characters in the book. 

For a few days in class, students work together to create the questions and answers for their podcast. They also come up with a show title and a podcast thumbnail. As student groups “live record” their podcast show, students in the classroom take notes.

Like the mini debate project, this is another collaborative project that sparks authentic conversation about the novels and literature we read in the classroom. 

Create a Literature Analysis Theme Park

Finally, the third project I designed to take AI out of literary analysis group projects and replace it with authentic student thinking and discussion is this Create a Literary Analysis Theme Park.

In collaborative groups, students work together to create a proposal for investors. Their goal is to create a theme park based on a novel or any piece of literature. This resource includes all the required paper planning sheets, so students do not need to use any technology or devices for the planning process.

In collaborative groups, students come up with a theme park name, a themed land, a ride, and a food item. Everything has to relate back to the novel you read in class (or one of the short stories you read in class). 

Once all of the planning and proposals are finished, students present their proposal to the investors to try to secure funding.

This project encourages collaboration, discussion, literary analysis, and creativity!

As it always has, education is forever changing. As teachers, it is our job to constantly adapt and change to meet the current demands of the profession. And while at times it feels like trying to stay two steps ahead of our students, we can always go back and rely on the tried-and-true methods. 

All of these collaborative projects are bundled together in an AI-proof Literary Analysis Activity Bundle!

Students Won’t Participate? 5 Quick Fixes

If your students won’t participate in class, give minimal answers, or seem completely disengaged, you’re not alone. Low student engagement is one of the most common challenges in middle and high school classrooms, and it shows up in frustrating ways: blank pages, surface-level responses, off-task behaviour, and silence during discussions.

When students are disengaged, the problem usually isn’t your lesson. They’re stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure how to respond…and pushing forward rarely fixes it.

What you need in those moments are quick, effective classroom strategies that re-engage students without starting over.

Here are 5 quick fixes: simple, in-the-moment moves you can use to get students participating again, improve focus, and bring your lesson back on track fast.

Quick fixes for students who won’t participate:

• Run a quick “Support It” challenge

• Shrink the task

• Use a turn-and-talk

• Add a fast - but focused - energizer

• Build in time for chat and tech breaks 

1. When students give vague, surface-level answers

What it looks like:

You’ve asked a question and all you get is:

• “I’m not sure… it just shows he’s nice.”

• “Because that’s what happened.”

• “I dunno…”

• Crickets…

What to do: Run a quick “Support It!” challenge

Stop the class and say:

“Okay, folks. We’re going to do a challenge right now. I am going to give you a hot take about a character, and you have to support it - or not. You can choose to disagree, as long as you support it with evidence - and not with something vague. Not with ‘because I think so.’ With real evidence. That’s the challenge.”

Give them:

• A simple claim you provide OR

• One based on a response a student already gave

• Two minutes to find one piece of evidence

• The choice to do it on their own or with a partner

Then model or prompt:

• The character is ___

• For example, she ___

• This shows ___ because ___

This strategy works because there’s an expectation to use a structure, the task is clear, and framing it as a “challenge” makes it more interesting.

I would suggest you try this the first time with something relatively easy: an obvious character trait, for example. This will allow students to practice and get in the habit of quickly finding evidence. Then, the next time, make it more interesting by picking something about the character that could be debatable.

• Learn how to teach students to support claims with evidence

• Try this ready-to-use (and free!) lesson plan for teaching textual evidence

2. When students are staring at the page, not working

What it looks like:

You have given your students a task, and some are working. But there are also:

• Heads down or eyes anywhere but on the task

• Blank or unfinished pages 

• Distracted, off-task students

What to do: Shrink the task 

For example, you have given students a writing or thinking task, and you have someone unable to get started. Say:

“Forget the whole paragraph for now. Just do this one thing.”

Then, give them a micro-task. For example:

• “Write ONE sentence about how the character feels.”

• “Circle one word that stands out and explain why.”

• “Add just one more example to support this point.”

This strategy works because it allows the student to focus on one thing at a time. Yes, I know they should be able to do more, but if they are staring at a blank page, you need to get them jump-started. Shrinking the task reduces overwhelm, gets them moving, and can build momentum quickly.

However, you must circle back soon and give them another small task to do once they’ve completed the first!

3. When the discussion is flat, or no one is participating

What it looks like:

• You ask a question… crickets

• The same 2–3 students do all the responding

• Everyone else checked out

What to do: A turn-and-talk

Say:

“I’m going to give you something to think about...”

Give a clear prompt:

• “Do you agree with the character’s choice? Yes or no - and why?”

Set a timer for 1–2 minutes to allow students to consider their answer. Then set it again for another 2-3 minutes and have them share their answer with a partner. Then pull a few responses from volunteers.

This strategy works because it allows students time to think, it lowers the risk, it gets everyone thinking and talking, and it can build confidence quickly.

Learn how to use this strategy!

4. When the energy is low and students are mentally gone

What it looks like:

• Slumped posture

• Slow responses

• That end-of-day (or mid-winter) fatigue

What to do: Reset with a fast, structured energizer or brain break

These give students a quick reset with activities that allow them to refocus.

Use them anytime to:

✅ Provide a fun, energizing “break” after a content-heavy lesson or period of work

✅ To refocus attention after transitions

✅ Wake students up whenever you think you’re losing them

✅ Review skills you’ve already done

✅ Warm-up at the beginning of a class

✅ Fill in the last few minutes of a class that has finished early

✅ Instill some fun that focuses on learning

✅ Show students that learning CAN be fun

This strategy works because it re-energizes students while still keeping them focused on learning.

If you’d like some energizers that are ready to go when you need to pivot, you’ll love my ready-to-use ELA Energizers & Brain Breaks -  read more about how to use them in your classroom.

5. When Phone Use and/or Chatter is Constant

What it looks like:

• You are battling for students’ attention

• Student phone use is preventing them from working

• Chatter and misbehavior is disrupting learning

What to do:  start by trying breaks and, if that doesn’t work, create a code of conduct.

Sometimes students just need a break; it’s hard to sit and listen all day - you know that from PD days, right? 

I found that giving my students a 2-3 minute break in the middle of class (or when it makes sense) made all the difference in the world. They could chat, check their phones, or just check out. Then knew they had to earn the break, and that really helped too. 

• Read more about that here.

But what if the break doesn’t work? What if you can’t get them off their phones or to stop talking? 

My greatest successes came when I had a heart-to-heart talk with students, and we worked together to create solutions. These solutions became agreed-upon codes of conduct that I could use as a reference and that allowed students to feel they had a voice in the climate of the classroom. Read more about them in the links below:

• How to control a chatty class
• Creating a cell phone code of conduct

This strategy works because you are showing students that you care about the fact that it can be hard to focus and that you will work with them to come up with solutions.

If you feel like your students have checked out

The instinct is to push through, but when students are checked out, pushing harder usually doesn’t work.

Pivoting to a re-engagement strategy can be just the thing you need to keep things on track. These quick fixes aren’t extra, though; they’re the moves that help you get your lesson back without starting over.

These are 5 quick fixes you can use when students won’t participate or seem completely disengaged.

Want Some Quick Fixes Ready to Go?

If you want these kinds of quick pivots already built for you—with prompts, structure, and student-friendly formats—you might love my ELA Energizers & Brain Breaks.

They’re designed for exactly these moments:
✔ When students are stuck
✔ When energy is low
✔ When you need something that works right away

Thanks for reading!

Jackie, Room 213

Check out these Brain Breaks from Presto Plans