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.