Teacher Guide

Atonement Lesson Plan

Introduction to Atonement

Atonement, published in 2001, was British writer Ian McEwan's eighth novel. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and received the National Book Critics' Circle Award in 2003. It tells the story of a false accusation and the devastation it wreaks on multiple lives. Briony Tallis is thirteen years old in 1935; a budding writer, she feels the shift from her simplistic childhood perspective to a more adult point of view during two long, hot days at her family's country home in southern England. Through a complex process, this revelation leads her to falsely accuse Robbie Turner—the son of the cleaning woman, her father's protege, and recently her sister Cecilia's...

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