Read Online Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird by Michael J. Meyer - Free Book Online

the messages conveyed in the novel. Susan Arpajian Jolley’s 2002 article identifies numerous poems appropriate for study alongside Mockingbird in conjunction with the novel’s themes of “courage . . . compassion, as well as what we can learn from history” (34).
    Despite the wide variety of knowledge and guidelines shared on these websites, the teaching of To Kill a Mockingbird is not without its challenges. Ricker-Wilson discusses the “problematic reader response” to the novel from students who were uncomfortable with some of the characterizations. One example: “Somewhat troubling to my students was how . . . Lee invited her readers to have an informed and sympathetic understanding for . . . white characters who kept racism alive and well” (72). Other potentially controversial aspects of the novel, such as the frequent use of racial epithets, are discussed in Louel Gibbons’ recently published NCTE volume, “To Kill a Mockingbird” in the Classroom: Walking in Someone Else’s Shoes (2009).
    Gibbons’ volume packs a load of information within its 121 pages of text, including a generous selection of writing prompts to stimulate student/reader engagement; assignments connected to students’ identification of the traditional elements of fiction; strategies to ensure close reading of the text as it informs punctuation and word choice; ideas for written responses to critical and evaluative essays on Mockingbird ; and recommendations for teaching the film as a “text separate from the original novel” (103). Given the virtually up-to-the-minute copyright on this NCTE volume, references to teaching To Kill a Mockingbird with technology are likely to be expected by educators who read or consult this work. While Gibbons recommends “multimedia presentations” to illuminate character analysis (21) and reports her success using library “print and technological resources” to assemble a research project (37), she fails to make such approaches an integral focus. In this essay, we argue that multimedia/technology-related activities can and should be central to the lesson/unit plan and that it is no longer sufficient to implement technology as a supplementary or add-on classroom activity. Our conclusion is based on recent research, which suggests that student learning is directly related to the integration of technology into the curriculum, which is essential in developing media literacy and assuring overall student engagement in the twenty-first century. Since strategies related to teaching To Kill a Mockingbird can foster such connections, we offer some suggestions in the remainder of this essay.
    Media Literacy and Twenty-first Century Skills
    As author James Naisbitt wrote in his 1982 book Megatrends , “We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge” (24). This phenomenon of the information age has led many in the literary field to expand the concept of literacy to better prepare students for twenty-first-century realities. Consequently, formal media literacy curricula, as part of a complete ELA program, have been growing in scope and importance in school districts throughout North America and around the world. Various terms are used to describe this expanded definition of literacy that accounts for today’s merging and converging media. “Media literacy,” “media education,” “twenty-first-century literacies,” and others are used, but, for the purpose of this essay, we will utilize the term “media literacy.”
    Numerous organizations like CML (the Center for Media Literacy) and NAMLE (the National Association for Media in Education) have formed in recent years to promote the concept, but more interesting is the support for media literacy from groups like the near century-old NCTE and even the American Pediatrics Association.
    The CML defines “media literacy” as follows:
    Media