Retelling a classic in 2018: The debate over To Kill a Mockingbird

• Harper Lee estate sues over Broadway's Mockingbird play

The novelwon a Pulitzer Prize, was adapted into an Oscar-winning film and has sold more than 40 million copies. It continues to live in the hearts and minds of millions of readers. This fall, it wasvoted America's best-loved novel.

But the book is also among the titles cited in a growing debate over how best to present literary classics that have problematic or contentious elements. Some of the criticism about Mockingbird is that the black characters in the novel have little agency or voice, and the story is written from the perspective of a white author. There's also the repeated use of the N-word.

Thatdiscussion is something Ontario's StratfordFestival has had to grapple with.

"Sometimes,To Kill a Mockingbirdlives nostalgically in people's minds and so they forget that it's quite a horrific story with a lot of really upsetting language, characters, incidents," says Lois Adamson, the festival's education director.

This fall, Stratford's own production ofTo Kill a Mockingbirdis accompanied bydigital study guidesfor teachers and students to review before seeing the play. And when the students arrive in Stratford, before the performance, they can participate in an hour-long workshop led by members of the cast.

These teaching resources and workshops allow students to ask critical questions about perspective, representation, authenticity andwhatvoices are missing from the text, before they see the play, Adamson said.

"There are not really black voices in the book,"saidactorDjahDixon-Green, who appears in the Stratford Mockingbird production as Jesse, a young black girl who cares for an elderly woman not shy about hurling racist views.

"The story is written by a white person. All the black people that speakit's through a white person's perspective of who they are, rather than their own voice."

Dixon-Green's character Jesse appears in Mockingbird, butwasn't written in the original play adaptation. Nigel Shawn Williams, who directed Stratford's production, added the character, with permission from Harper Lee's estate, to help elevate the presence of black characters.

Though the character has no speaking part, "I think it's important [she's included], so that those few black children in the audience or visible minority children in the audience have that connection onstage,"Dixon-Green said.

Along with fellowcastmates, Dixon-Green helps run the pre-show student workshops that covertopics such as Jim Crow laws, oppression and social justice.

She says she's been "pleasantly surprised" by the engagement she's seen from many students, who ask important questionsand offer"a strong opinion on what they feel about the situation and how it connects in today's world."

Still, shesays, not every school group has the same level and depth of understanding when it comes to the civil rights movement and the themes in the text.

Looking beyond Mockingbird

As a teen growing up in Nova Scotia, George Elliott Clarke readTo Kill a Mockingbirdand enjoyed it. But the writer and poet is among those looking at the novel with more of a critical eye today.

"If we want to use that novel to teach anti-racism, to teach empowerment of black youth in particular, even to teach the history of racial discrimination in theU.S.and Canada, it has to fail," says the professor and former parliamentary poet laureate.

The continued teaching ofMockingbirdin Canada achieves only one thing, he says: "That it's the Americans who are racist. It's the Americans who have a history of slavery and a history of segregation."

George Elliott Clarke shares why Canadians should lookbeyondTo Kill a Mockingbird.

George Elliot Clarke on why it might be time to move beyond To Kill a Mockingbird

6 years ago

Duration 0:56

Instead, Clarke believes Canadian students should be learning about our own history of race relations, a topic many Indigenous and black Canadian writers have explored.

"We need to go to texts that talk about Canadian experiences and also texts that do not marginalize and alienate black youth in the classroom."

Schools debate a classic

Indeed, the debate surroundingMockingbirdand its place in schools has been going on for decades in North America. Some schools haveremoved it from classreading lists and it remains among the American Library Association'smost challenged classics.

In 1996, the Nova Scotia Department of Education started phasing outTo Kill a Mockingbirdin its public schools after a curriculum review. One of its suggested replacement novels was A Lesson Before Dying by African-American author Ernest J.Gaines. Touching on the same themes as Mockingbird, the text depicts people of African descent as "fully human and as having agency," the department stated.

This fall, theMockingbirddebate reignited in Ontario after thePeel District School Board sent out a memoto its staff about teaching the novel in its secondary schools, saying the book "may not be taught, unless instruction occurs through a critical, anti-oppression lens."

The decision came asaresult of a review by Peel District board officials and hearing from black students and parents who cited Mockingbird and the frequent use of theN-wordin the text as an example of the "demeaning representation" of blacks in the school curriculum.

What young people think

But some educators and students see the value in keepingTo Kill a Mockingbirdaround.

"It shows what it was like 90 years ago when the novel was set. And thankfully we have evolved as a society since then,"says MichaelPizzuti, an English teacher at London Central Secondary School who has taught the novel for 20 years.

Over eight weeks, he and his students discuss the controversies around the text including the use of theN-wordand analyze its themes such as family relationships, the treatment of African-Americansand finding one's voice.

This year,Pizzutibrought his students to see Stratford's production and participated in the workshops. The high schoolers felt there was lots to take away fromMockingbird.

Teens studyingTo Kill a Mockingbirdshare their thoughts about the novel and encountering racism today.

'There's always more we can be doing:' teens talk racism and To Kill a Mockingbird

6 years ago

Duration 2:28

"It really amplified that black people didn't have the voice," says 14-year-old SaraAlnachef.

She still sees relevance in the novel's lessons. In particular, the idea that if you don't stand up to bigotry then you're as guiltyas the people ofMaycombinMockingbird.

For these teens, racismisn't something of the past. It's something they encounter today.

"We've come a long way," says 14-year-old Samantha Blight. "But there's always more we can be doing to improve society."