Beyond its themes and its place in the canon, To Kill a Mockingbird teaches something rarer: how to truly know another person — by first being willing to love them. A literature teacher’s case for why the novel is still worth reading, and worth teaching, and how to give it the depth it deserves.
We tend to rush students toward the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird. But the slow first half is where the novel does its quietest work — teaching us to misjudge Boo Radley before we’re asked to judge Tom Robinson. A teacher’s reading of waiting, with ideas for the classroom.
Atticus Finch’s closing argument works as a legal argument, a study in rhetoric, a moral challenge, and a historical document — all at once. Here is how I read it, and what I have found most productive for teaching it.
Explore whether The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a true allegory or a rich imaginative supposal by C.S. Lewis, and learn how this distinction can deepen students’ understanding of Aslan and the novel’s themes of redemption, sacrifice, and moral growth.
When I read The Magician’s Nephew with my students, they almost always notice echoes of the biblical creation story — and they’re right. In this article, I explore how these parallels — from Aslan’s song to Digory’s moral choices — can spark rich classroom discussions and invite reflection on literature, faith, and responsibility.
In The Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis crafted Narnia’s origins — yet the novel was not written first. Does this have implications for teaching the series? Absolutely. This article explores The Magician’s Nephew’s role as a Narnia prequel and why the difference between publication and chronological order matters in the classroom.
