Ninth graders will read chapters 28- 31 of A Lesson Before Dying. They participate in a whole-class discussion about the changes that occur in the main characters and how these changes relate to lessons being learned. Students will analyze how the author develops tone in the last chapters of the book and how this tone relates to "If We Must Die" by Claude McKay and make connections between the themes that are developed in the poems and in the last four chapters of the novel.