In ninth-grade English classes around the country, To Kill a Mockingbird is supposed to deliver a reckoning with American racism. We’re tasked with teaching a book that doesn’t live up to its longstanding responsibility. Most of us have to teach the novel every year, and our irreverence springs from discomfort. Just, you know, take a walk in her shoes, dude, I might sneer, interrupting a teacher’s account of an encounter with a difficult student’s unpleasant parent. A literary roast punctuated by sarcastic regurgitations of Atticus Finch’s sanctimonious advice. My English department colleagues and I can spend a whole lunch break making fun of To Kill a Mockingbird.
