TKM+Chapter+2

Chapter 2:

Describe the classroom and classmates Describe and analyze Walter Cunningham and his family
 * When Scout begins her first day of first grade (and Jem began fifth grade), she and Ms. Caroline Fisher, a new teacher at the school, do not get along right away.
 * Ms. Caroline was one of the teachers that brought in a new way of teaching, which was the Dewey System, and started using it with her students before the entire school started using it.
 * Throughout the chapter, Scout and Ms. Caroline get into two different arguments. The first one was when Ms. Caroline discovered that Scout was able to read.
 * One of Scout’s classmates was Walter Cunningham, and he has repeated first grade three times. This was because his family was poor and he needed to help with the crops. The second argument Scout and Ms. Caroline got into was when Scout said Walter could not afford to get lunch and could not pay Ms. Caroline back because his family was poor.
 * Another student with the same situation was Burris Ewell, except his family did not have their kids go back to school after the first day because they just did not want them to.
 * The Cunninghams are a large family who own a farm and suffer greatly from the Great Depression.
 * They don’t take anything they can’t repay even though they’re barely getting by.
 * When they do pay, though, it’s not with money but with their crops or maybe getting a job done for someone.
 * Although they’re poor, they have kept a hold of their morals such as respect, dignity, and honesty.
 * In this novel, the Cunninghams represent the average family during the Great Depression who are trying to live off of the resources that are available to them.

Include signs of hard economic times (throughout the whole chapter)
 * Walter had no shoes.
 * Walter did not have a lunch.
 * The Cunninghams did not take money because they could not pay it back.
 * Mr. Cunningham paid Atticus with stove wood, nuts, holly, and turnips.
 * Many kids would start the school year but not return because they had to help out on their family’s farm.
 * Scout says that walter "probably hasn't seen three quarters together at one time"
 * The Cunninghams did not have much food to eat.

Analyze the allusions on page 21


 * The allusions on page twenty-one are a reference to the events of the Great Depression.
 * The “crash” that hit the farmers the hardest was when the stock market crashed, or Black Tuesday. This was the start of the Great Depression.
 * The WPA, or the Works Progress Administration, offered work for people who were unemployed. The jobs that were usually given were building highways and bridges.