Brown v. Board: What insights does it provide the reader in a historical context to TKMB? (Week 3)

     Brown v. Board of Education was a supreme court case about an African American man wanting his daughter to go to a school around the corner instead of a school that is far away. He sues the Board of education to try to get his daughter to go to an all white school. In the end they created a law that did not allow schools to separate their students because of the color of their skin.This relates to the context of the book by letting the reader knows how African Americans were treated. This books is taking place in the time period when segregation was happening. Scout's father is a lawyer for African Americans, and is talked about a lot, negatively. Scout gets in trouble with a class mate because the class mate makes fun of her dad for helping African Americans. It is hard for Scout because she does not see anything wrong with helping African Americans. One night Jem, Scout, and couple of their friends mess around with the Radley house. Mr. Radley shots at the "intruders" and says that he thought they were African Americans breaking in to his house. This shows that he thought he had the right to shot because it was an African American, when really it was a bunch of little kids. It was hard for African Americans, but it was also hard for Scout to realize that people do not see people as equal people. This helps make most of the story, because then there would not be many issues between the Finch family and other people in their town.

Connections to Doubt: What role does gossip play in To Kill a Mockingbrid? (Week 2)

   
In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, gossip plays a huge role. This boy who lives down the street is a very mysterious character, even though he is talked about a lot in the book. The boy, Boo Radley, was a trouble maker when he was younger, that is why his dad and his brother keep him in the house. His childhood was ruined by his abusive father and now he is not "normal" child. We also know that he was nice and polite as a young child, and that he was not crazy when he was younger. We basically do not know nothing more about him, everything else we think we know about him is the gossip. Other things that we hear about is that he eats cats, hes crazy, and many other things. Many people gossip about the unknown things about him, and this causes problems. Many of the things that people say about him are not true, and makes people think differently of him. 
     In the movie, Doubt, a priest starts talking about gossiping, and how it is bad. He gives an example of gossip being feathers in a pillow. If you cut open the pillow then the feathers will go everywhere, and you will not be able to retract all the feathers from that pillow, its is impossible. That is like the words of gossip. Once someone tells another person of gossip, they have no clue who that person will tell, and how far the will exaggerate on the story. This is a major issue in To Kill a Mockingbird. Many people gossip about Boo Radley and his family but many people do not know much about him.  This ruins how people think of him, could change there relationship with him. This is one of the plots to the story. The children, Scout and Jem, learn that should look at it from that persons perspective before judging them. That is a moral that everyone should learn. But since they do not learn that until later in the book, they do spread rumors. If they ever wanted to take the rumor back they could not. Rumors are like feathers in the wind, you can not collect all of them back. So all that the children said will never be able to be taken back, no matter how much they want to.
     Many people judge people just by what they hear of them, and that is not good. You should get to know them first and then judge them on what you know and not what you think might be true. For all you know the person who told you is making it up, just because the do not like them. When someone tells you something about a person you should ask where they heard it from, and if it is not directly from the person they are talking about then it would not be a good idea to believe them. Even then, it would be a good idea to ask the person if it is true. If you start rumors you should stop, they are very bad and should not be spread. If rumors were spread about you, you would not like it. Why start rumors about other people if you would not like rumors spread about you?

Who is Harper Lee? (Week 1)

     Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville Alabama. Her father was a lawyer, member of Alabama's legislature and owned part of a news paper, and her mother want mentally ill most of her life. She was the youngest of four. By protecting her best friend, Truman Capote, and being tougher then most boys, she was known as a tomboy. She found a passion for English in high school. She graduated high school in 1944, then went to an all girls college, then transferred to another college where she participated in her schools newspaper and became editor of a humor magazine. The school offered her a chance to attended the university's law school and she accepted, leaving behind her writing and editing. She went to Oxford University in England as an exchange student, and then went back to America and dropped out of school after one semester of law school. She then went to New York to accomplish her dream of being a writer. She struggled for several years, working at different jobs and befriending many people. One year her friend gave her the best gift anyone could give her, a chance to write full time. They would pay all expensive for her to live, so she quit her job and started writing. Her friends also helped her find an agent that got a publisher interested in her writing. Her only book, To Kill a Mocking Bird, was published in 1960 and won four awards. She spent most of her time helping her good friend Truman Capote, and never published her second book. She lives in New York, and tries to avoid anything to do with her book.
http://www.gradesaver.com/author/harper-lee/
http://www.biography.com/articles/Harper-Lee-9377021
http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-lee-harper.asp