Mockingbird

Multiple Choice

1. C (Chapters 1-3)

2. A (Chapter 5)

3. D (Chapter 7)

4. A (Chapter 8)

5. C (Chapter 10)

6. A (Chapter 11)

7. D (Chapter 13)

8. B (Chapter 15)

9. B (Chapter 16)

10. D (Chapter 19)

11. A (Chapter 22)

12. D (Chapter 24)

13. A (Chapter 31)

14. B (Chapter 35)

15. C (Chapter 39)

Long-Answer Response

1. Josh is the toughest challenge for Caitlin’s emerging sense of empathy. She does not like Josh, not because he is related to one of the shooters who killed her brother but because he seems mean on the playground. In Caitlin’s simplistic view, Josh is simply evil. It is when Caitlin tries to rescue Michael from Josh when he is hanging from the monkey bars that Caitlin sees that she has not been fair to Josh. She sees that Josh is suffering from other kids scapegoating him for the school shooting, which he had nothing to do with. Caitlin and Michael sit on either side of Josh and put their arms around him—a signal that Caitlin now sees how Josh feels and how Josh is suffering. (Chapters 4, 7, 9, 15, and 35)

2. As Caitlin understands closure, it involves things left undone or unsaid that need to be completed for emotional recovery from some traumatic event to take place. Although Mrs. Brook’s best advice is to give the trauma time to heal, Caitlin is determined to be proactive. In completing the unfinished Mission cabinet with her father, Caitlin hopes to give both of them a welcome sense of finishing something Devon left unfinished. In working together, Caitlin and her father help close the emotional gap between them in the aftermath of the shooting. Completing the cabinet gives them both a sense of new beginnings. (Chapter 8, 11, 28, 39)

3. In the beginning, Caitlin is a child and spends much time retreating from the real world, which can be confusing and chaotic. She even tries to make her world fit the black-and-white world of To Kill a Mockingbird, assigning her family and friends roles in the old movie. Her father’s advice, coming from a man grieving the loss of his wife and his son, is particularly meaningful: Life, whatever the hardships, is special. That he shares that with his daughter indicates what the larger novel argues: Life is special when you share it with others. Caitlin reflects that she understands her father’s advice when, in the closing chapter, she sheds her shoes, steps into the cool grass behind the school, and decides it is time to sketch the world in colors. (Chapters 16, 19, 32, 38, 39)