Stereotypes and To Kill a Mockingbird

Because we are getting ready to read To Kill a Mockingbird, my 9th graders have spent A LOT of time talking about stereotypes. Some are getting sick of it, while some really enjoy the discussion.

For the first lesson I showed about 10 different pictures of various people and asked my students to write down their primary thoughts about the person (they were stereotyping, even though they didn't know it at the time). I included Ted Bundy, Timothy McVeigh, a 10 year old who kidnapped and brutally killed a 2 year old, a successful woman who stole over $100,000 from her mother, a cheerleader, a young African American male, and more. Some of the pictures were just ordinary people, while others had stories to go along with the pictures. We talked about each picture and what their impressions were, and then I revealed the identity of some of them (the ones that weren't ordinary people). All in all, they were shocked! It really got them thinking though and it proved to them that they stereotype "at first glance" even if they aren't conscious of it.

Today we listened to Melissa Etheridge's "Scarecrow." It is about a boy who was beaten and left to die (but I didn't tell them what it was about). It is a really sad song. I had the students listen to it once and asked them to draw whatever they were thinking and feeling. We had a good discussion about the song, and then I revealed half of the story (just that a boy was beaten and left to die). We listened to the song again, and this time knowing more about the song, they drew another picture. After their second picture, I revealed that the boy was beaten and killed because he was gay. Most of my students couldn't believe it and were really shocked; in fact, many were speechless. One boy had the nerve to say, "Well, he was gay...no wonder he got beaten and killed." This made my blood boil and several students immediately got on him for his comment. Needless to say, I still kicked him out of class and talked to him privately. He didn't understand why his comment was wrong until I asked him "What if someone in our class was gay? How do you think that would make him or her feel?" It turned out okay, but I couldn't believe his comment. His comment made me realize one thing though: because there are people out there that feel that way and openly voice those attitudes and opinions, it is still important to teach things like the Holocaust and books like To Kill a Mockingbird.

I'm going to post some of the "Scarecrow" pictures later!

And lastly...I made a movie! Before you get all impressed, I made it from Microsoft's Movie Maker, so it's not stellar quality. I wanted to give my students some background information on the Great Depression before we started reading To Kill a Mockingbird. It took me three hours, but here is the final product (there's sound!)