Lesson
2, Discussion
Subject/Course:
English
Topic: Compare and Contrast To Kill a
Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Glass Castle by
Jeannette Walls
Lesson Title: Compare
and Contrast Unique and Unconventional Parenting Styles of Atticus Finch, Rose
Mary Walls, and Rex Walls using “Golden Lines” Discussion Technique
Level: 9th Grade
Lesson Duration: 2
classes (upon completion of class reading of The Glass Castle and
To Kill a Mockingbird)
Lesson Objectives: evidence-based
discussion regarding unique and unconventional parenting styles and its
positive affect on children as displayed by the main characters in each novel
Summary of
Tasks/Actions:
- · Asks students to keep a “Golden Lines” log of
quotations which highlight the unique and unconventional parenting styles of
Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird
and Rose Mary Walls and Rex Walls in The
Glass Castle as they read each novel. Examples should lead to positive
outcomes for their respective children. (Negative outcomes are a different
discussion, as all parents experience negative outcomes).
- · Students will be asked to have a minimum of 5 “golden
lines” per book, complete with examples of unique parenting and corresponding positive
outcome, even if some of it requires paraphrasing.
- · Along with these specific “golden lines,”
students should journal the following prompts to go along with them regarding
their responses to these unique and unconventional parenting styles:
I thought…
I liked…
I wondered…
I felt…
References:
Lee, H. (1960). To kill a mockingbird. New York:
Grand Central Publishing.
Walls,
J. (2005). The glass castle. New York: Scribner.
Take
Homes Tasks:
After
class discussions are complete, use your “golden lines” and journal entries to
guide you in writing an evidence-based “compare and contrast essay,” comparing
and contrasting the positive aspects of the unique and unconventional parenting
styles of Atticus Finch, Rose Mary Walls, and Rex Walls. Be sure to make a clear
position in your thesis statement and support it with evidence in the body of
your essay (using your “golden lines.”) This essay should be at least five
paragraphs.
Reference Materials:
Examples of “Golden Lines” from To Kill A Mockingbird describing the unique and unconventional parenting
skills of Atticus Finch and its positive outcomes:
1) Perhaps
the most obvious aspect of his unique and unconventional parenting is the
decision to have his children call him by his first name: Atticus, just as
everyone else does. This is out of respect for his children, believing them to
be equals. He shows he is not ageist or classist or particularly hung up on
authority.
2) Atticus
is a widower, always tied up with work, always needing personal time to read
the newspaper, but finds the time to spend one-on-one with his children.
3) He never
spanks or yells, and patiently answers any and all questions, “When a child
asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don’t make a production
of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults,
and evasion simply muddles ‘em” (Lee, 1960, p.116). This is the foundation of
his parenting philosophy, in addition to modeling the behavior he expects to
see in his children.
4) He
even comes up with compromises to help his children navigate their very small
world as evidenced by the conflict Scout has in school because she already
knows how to read (Atticus advises Scout allow her teacher the dignity and pride
of teaching her by attending school and participating in exchange for extra
reading lessons and one-on-one time with Atticus at home; it is, after all, his
fault that she learned to read early) (Lee, 1960, p.41).
5)
Atticus makes a point to teach his children
about empathy and understanding, and does it in a way that suggests it is a
lesson to be used as they live the rest of their lives; he takes these learning
opportunities to try and raise better people, “If you can learn a simple trick,
Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks… You never really
understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—Until you climb
inside of his skin and walk around in it,” Atticus Finch is not only patient,
he clearly thinks about the long-term consequences of his lessons (Lee, 1960,
p.39).
6) “I
wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that
courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked
before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. You
rarely win, but sometimes you do” (Lee, 1960, p.149).
-There
is so much wisdom packed into this quotation: Atticus’s position on guns, on
fighting a fight even if it isn’t a fair one, about the importance of finishing
what you start, about putting in the work for the sake of the work and not the
win. There are so many lessons here, and they were all taught in the context of
the death of a belligerent neighbor.
7) “According
to [Mrs. Dubose’s] views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the
bravest person I ever knew” (Lee, 1960, p.149).
-This is a powerful quotation
coming from Atticus, because Atticus is the bravest man Scout and Jem know. For
Atticus to admit to feeling that way about someone else is to admit his
humanity, and for a person that Jem and Scout really did not like at all. This
single statement brings Jem in particular to feel like his world is turned
inside-out for a moment, where he needs to reconsider everything, especially
everything he thought about Mrs. Dubose, because he respects Atticus’s opinion
so much and holds it in such high regard. A simple statement goes a long way
for the Finch children; Atticus taught them how to think; given the
opportunity, he gives them things to think about to alter and broaden their
world-view. Atticus says as much to Uncle Jack about Scout, “the answer is she
knows I know she tries” (Lee, 1960, p.116)
8) “Best
way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open” (Lee, 1960, p.366).
Atticus believes in transparency, even if the truth is ugly and doesn’t show
him in a favorable light. Atticus believes in the truth first, and always.
Honesty is an incredibly important aspect of his parenting, both in his
teaching and in his modeling. He was tested near the end when Jem was suspected
of murder, and even when Jem’s name was cleared, Atticus was skeptical, “I don’t
want [Jem] growing up with a whisper about him, I don’t want anybody saying, ‘Jem
Finch…his daddy paid a mint to get him out of that’ ” (Lee, 1960, p.366).
Atticus would only accept Jem’s innocence if it was the absolute truth. A clear
conscious is something that drives Atticus. It drives him to take Tom Robinson’s
case, even when the town was pressuring him to do the opposite, “but before I
can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that
doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience” (Lee, 1960, p.140). Integrity
is everything to Atticus, “I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t
try to help that man” (Lee, 1960, p.139).
9) During
a visit with Uncle Jack, Scout has an encounter where she explains why Uncle
Jack hands a situation poorly (as in, he did not handle it the way Atticus
does), “I love you even after what you did, but you don’t understand children
much…In the first place you never stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side
of it—you just lit right into me. When Jem an’ I fuss Atticus doesn’t ever just
listen to Jem’s side of it, he hears mine too” (Lee, 1969, p.113). Atticus’s parenting
style is likely inspired by his profession as a lawyer, but modelling that
there are two sides to a story is a great way to begin teaching his children
about empathy, something he values very much and tries to teach them in a
variety of ways.
Examples of “Golden Lines” from The Glass Castle describing the unique and unconventional parenting
skills of Rose Mary Walls and Rex Walls and the positive outcomes of said
unique parenting:
1) “You can’t
cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach
a child is ‘if you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim’ ” (Walls,
2005,p.66)
-both a specific incident and a general
approach to parenting
2) “After dinner,
the whole family stretched out on the benches and the floor of the depot and
read, with the dictionary in the middle of the room so we kids could look up
words we didn’t know. Sometimes I discussed the definitions with Dad, and if we
didn’t agree with what the dictionary writers said, we sat down and wrote a
letter to the publishers. Occasionally, on those nights when we were all
reading together, a train would thunder by, shaking the house and rattling the
windows. The noise was thunderous, but after we'd been there a while, we didn't
even hear it” (Walls, 2005, pp.56-57).
-Here is
example of a peaceful scene occurring within the Walls family (which are not
often depicted). Learning was encouraged in the Walls household by both parents,
and Rex Walls especially loved teaching lessons on psychics, geology, and
astronomy to his children. Being poor does not mean being uneducated. Rex Walls
even showed his children how to advocate for themselves (by writing letters to
the publishers, as an example).
3) “She’d been reading books on how to
cope with an alcoholic, and they said that drunks didn’t remember their
rampages, so if you cleaned up after them, they’d think nothing had happened.
‘Your father needs to see the mess he’s making of our lives,’ Mom said” (Walls,
2005, pp. 112-113).
-Rose Mary
Walls was just as unconventional in the way she treated her husband as she was
in parenting.
4) “ 'Oh Yeah?' I said. 'How about Hitler?
What was his redeeming quality?' / 'Hitler loved dogs,' Mom said without
hesitation” (Walls, 2005, p.144)
-As a result of the frustration
Jeannette feels toward her grandmother and her prejudice, Rose Mary tries to
teach her daughter a lesson in compassion by explaining even the worst person
Jeannette can think of had a good quality. Rose Mary hopes to teach her
daughter to understand what caused her grandmother to become prejudiced instead
of merely judging her, and to take-away a larger lesson which is not to judge
but to understand.
5) Later that night, Dad stopped the car
out in the middle of the desert, and we slept under the stars. We had no
pillows, but Dad said that was part of his plan. He was teaching us to have
good posture. The Indians didn't use pillows, either, he explained, and look
how straight they stood. We did have our scratchy army-surplus blankets, so we
spread them out and lay there, looking up at the field of stars. I told Lori
how lucky we were to be sleeping out under the sky like Indians. / 'We could
live like this forever,' I said. / 'I think we're going to,' she said” (Walls,
2005, p.18).
-This passage can teach us a lot about
the various characters in The Glass
Castle. Rex Walls always has some creative adventure planned that is a
sharp turn from reality to make life more exciting for his children. This
passage also reveals that Jeannette is the only one who really plays along with
her father’s fantasies (which becomes clear in the first pages of the memoir during
the very first adventure: escaping the hospital). It is understandable why Rex
so desperately wants to keep his children from seeing the reality of their
circumstances, because he has so little control over what he can do about them;
he wants them to have a happen childhood in spite of said circumstances. Thus,
he gives them what he can: fantasies and adventure and lessons on what he knows.
Still, Lori is cynical and chooses to see reality.
6) “Mom, however,
told us that the FBI wasn’t really after Dad; he just liked to say they were
because it was more fun having the FBI on your tail than bill collectors”
(Walls, 2005, p.21)
-Here is
another example of Rex Walls telling tall tales not only to make his life more
interesting and creating a canon of stories his children loved to hear
over-and-over, it was a way for him to keep a sense of pride and dignity by
avoiding reality.
7) “When Dad
wasn’t telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was
telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass
Castle” (Walls, 2005 p.28)
-Beyond her
father’s dream, this “glass castle” became a family dream, so much considered
that Rex Walls carried actual blueprints with him for his children to work on
as a distraction or when hope was needed. This also give context to the memoir
title.
8) “ ‘That was the
thing to remember about all monsters,’ Dad said: ‘They love to frighten people,
but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run.’ ” (Walls, 2005, p.43).
-Right before this quotation, Rex Walls
took Jeannette “Demon Hunting” to “chase away” the “demons” she imagined. This
is a very creative, hands-on approach to parenting. Rex Walls did not dismiss,
Jeannette; he took her seriously, and took action to assuage her fear.
