Reading Check Part 2

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 12 1. Describe the changes in Jem and Scout’s relationship.

2. What disappoints Jem and Scout about this summer?

3. How are Jem and Scout treated at Calpurnia’s church? Give specific examples.

4. What is different about Calpurnia when she is at church?

5. Describe some of the things that surprise the kids about the church.

6. How did Calpurnia learn to speak “grammatically correct English”? Why doesn’t Cal speak “grammatically correct English” when she talks to other people of color?

7. What unpleasant surprise do the children receive when they return home from church?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 13 1. Why has Aunt Alexandra come to stay with the Finch family in Maycomb?

2. How do Jem and Scout react to this?

3. What is life like with Alexandra in the house? Give examples.

4. What does Atticus try to explain to Jem and Scout at the end of the chapter?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 14 1. What does Alexandra suggest about Calpurnia? Why?

2. Why do Jem and Scout get into a fight?

3. What does Scout find in her bedroom? What does she mistake it for at first?

4. How did Dill arrive in Maycomb? Why was he there?

5. What does Scout mean when she says: “Jem broke the remaining code of our childhood”? (pg. 141)

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 15 1. What does it mean in Maycomb when grown men stand outside in the front yard instead of coming into the house?

2. For what reason does Jem shout “Atticus, the telephone’s ringing!”?

3. When Atticus asks “Do you really think so?” Scout says that this is his “dangerous question.” Explain what Scout meant by that statement.

4. What side does Aunt Alexandra take concerning the trial? How do you know?

5. What is Atticus worried about when he goes and sits in front of the jail? Is he in real danger?

6. Describe the jail.

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 16 1. Why does Aunt Alexandra get upset with Atticus at breakfast?

2. What does Atticus say about a mob?

3. List two people who go into town for the trial AND what Jem says about them.

4. What, according to Maycomb standards, is peculiar about Mr. Dolphus Raymond?

5. Explain what the Idler’s club member meant when he said, “Yeah, but Atticus means to defend him. That’s what I don’t like about it”.

6. What happens to Scout and Jem as a result of the crowding in the courthouse?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 17 1. What position does Heck Tate hold in Maycomb?

2. In a few words, what is Heck Tate’s testimony?

3. What kind of people are the Ewells? Explain with examples from the text.

4. What is Bob Ewell’s testimony?

5. What causes the courtroom to erupt and Reverend Sykes to tell the children to go home?

6. What was Atticus trying to show by having Mr. Ewell write his name on an envelope?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 18 1. List information about the Ewell home and family life from Mayella’s testimony. What impression does Atticus attempt to establish?

2. What does Mayella testify about Tom Robinson?

3. What is it about Tom Robinson that leads one to believe he could not have grabbed Mayella, beaten, and raped her?

4. What is Mayella’s attitude toward Atticus? Give evidence.

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 19 1. Explain how Tom Robinson knows Mayella. Are they well-acquainted?

2. Why did Tom Robinson refuse money from Mayella?

3. What was the true story of the “rape”?

4. What kind of man is Tom Robinson?

5. What does Link Deas interrupt the court to say about Tom?

6. What is the fatal mistake that Tom makes in his testimony and in his life?

7. What is it that makes Dill feel sick?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 20 1. With whom do the children speak outside the courtroom after Dill feels sick?

2. What does Mr. Raymond have in his paper sack?

3. Why does Mr. Raymond pretend to be drunk?

4. What does Atticus say about the act of lying in his closing remarks (pg. 204)?

5. What does Atticus say is the one way that all men are equal in the United States?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 21 1. What does Scout know as soon as she sees that Tom had been convicted?

2. Why do all the Negroes stand up as Atticus leaves the courtroom?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 22 1. Why does Jem cry as the children leave the court?

2. What kind gesture do Tom Robinson’s family and his friends make toward Atticus?

3. What reassuring comments does Miss Maudie say to Jem?

4. Why does Dill say that he is going to be a clown when he grows up?

5. What does Bob Ewell do to Atticus?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 23 1. What does Atticus explain about Bob Ewell’s motive in threatening him?

2. What is Tom’s sentence?

3. What does Atticus say about whites cheating blacks (pg. 220)?

4. Why won’t Aunt Alexandra allow Scout to invite Walter Cunningham to their house?

5. According to Jem, what are the four types of people living in the world (or in Maycomb county)?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 24 1. Why does Scout attend her aunt’s meetings and teas?

2. List reasons that Scout feels more at home in her father’s world?

3. What news is received of Tom Robinson?

4. At the end of the chapter, what does Scout learn about being a lady?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 25 1. What did Jem teach Dill how to do?

2. Who went with Atticus to tell Helen Robinson about her husband’s death?

3. What was Maycomb’s attitude about Tom’s death?

4. What was Mr. B. B. Underwood’s attitude toward Tom’s death?

5. According to Miss Stephanie, what comment did Bob Ewell make?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 26 1. How do Jem and Scout feel about the Radley place now that they are older?

2. Scout says that “…the events of the summer hung over us like smoke in a closed room.” Give examples of this.

3. How does Scout define the word “democracy” in class one day?

4. What confuses Scout about what her teacher says about not persecuting anybody?

5. What makes Jem so upset at the end of the chapter? How does Atticus explain it to Scout?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 27 1. The chapter begins with a statement that three things out of the ordinary happened in Maycomb by the middle of October. Describe each of these incidents. #1

#2

#3

2. What does Atticus explain about Bob Ewell’s motive in causing trouble for everyone connected to the case?

3. What is to be different about Halloween this year in Maycomb?

4. What is Scout’s part in the Halloween pageant?

5. What is peculiar about her costume? Describe the details. (This will be important later!)

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 28 1. Describe in detail the trip that Jem and Scout make from home to school.

2. Describe some of the things that Scout and Cecil did (or didn’t do) at the Halloween festival.

3. What made Scout want to hide in mortification until all the others had gone home?

4. Explain what happens when Scout and Jem walk home after the pageant.

5. What question does Scout continue to ask about Jem? Why?

6. What news does Heck Tate bring after going to investigate the incident?

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 29 1. Why does Aunt Alexandra think that Jem’s condition is her fault? What does Atticus say to console her?

2. Why didn’t anyone in the neighborhood hear the children when they shouted at who they thought to be Cecil Jacobs?

3. What does Heck Tate believe saved Scout’s life?

4. Who helped Scout and Jem during and after the attack? Describe this character.

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 30 1. Why does Atticus suggest that the group carry on with the investigation on the porch?

2. What argument do Heck Tate and Atticus have about the death of Bob Ewell?

3. What does Scout mean when she says to Atticus, “Well, it’d be sort of like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?”

Name: __________________________ Section: ___________ Reading Check Chapter 31 1. As Scout walks Arthur Radley home, what makes her sad?

2. What does Scout see as she stands on the Radley porch?

3. How has Scout changed as she walks back down the street to her home?

4. How does The Gray Ghost fit into the theme of the novel?

5. How does the author tie the end of the novel to the beginning?