Dear Editor:
I believe that our high school must include To Kill A Mockingbird in the 9th grade level English class because the book teaches people a lot of life lessons.

In the book, there is a huge use of the “n” word. While critics may argue that the “n” word is not something children should be around, however, this argument is incorrect because in today’s society a lot of songs out there that children are listening to have that word in it all the time, and since they hear it all the time it doesn’t make a difference that the book states that word a lot. In fact, with that word being in the book, shows the kids what it was like in the 1930s with all of the racial comments. Critics also say that yes this book has a lot of good life lessons, but they are hidden in the book and you have to think outside of the book to understand them, however the lessons in this book are straightforward and are really easy to understand. One main message that is clearly stated in the book is when Atticus would always say to the kids and what our parents would always tell us is “you need to walk a mile in someone’s shoes before you go judging them”. This is a good lesson for students to know and it is stated right in the book so you don’t have think outside of the box to understand that is the message they are getting across.

To Kill A Mockingbird should be in our high school curriculum. One reason being, with the Tom Robinson trial it really shows how racist it was down in the south during the 1930s. Even though it was obvious that Tom was innocent, the jury(made up of all white males) voted for him to be guilty because it was a white man’s word over a black man’s word. An example is "'Miss Jean Louise?' I looked around. They were all standing. All around us, and in the balcony on the opposite wall, the Negroes were getting to their feet. Reverend Sykes's voice was as distant as Judge Taylor's: 'Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'”(211). This shows that even though Atticus had lost and Tom Robinson was found guilty, all of the black people there at the trial stood up in respect of him because not many people would take the task of defending a black man on trial. Another reason to make To Kill A Mockingbird part of the high school curriculum is to not judge