I began reading Huck Finn with my 10th graders today.  I told them near the beginning of the period that I had been looking forward to their class all day so that we could read together.  I wonder if other teachers tell students little secrets like that.  If not, I think they should.  I think it’s great for students to see that we really enjoy the material we’re teaching.  I think that sort of affection and appreciation can be contagious.  We began with Twain’s NOTICE at the beginning of the book.  I asked the students why Twain would write such a thing.  Predictably, their first reaction was to take him at his word and assume he really didn’t want us to find a motive, moral, or plot in the novel.  I asked them, “What do you want to do the minute someone tells you not to do something?” and they immediately understood.  By asking the reader not to look for a motive, moral, and plot, Twain was making sure that the reader would do the opposite.  Clever guy.

I read aloud for the first two chapters.  One student who just finished the book mentioned that until he heard me read it, he couldn’t figure out what Jim’s word “gwyne” meant.  That comment is a perfect argument for starting the story by reading aloud in class.  We had to have a discussion about snuff, which is mentioned early in the story, because the students hadn’t heard of it and wanted to know all about it.  Of course, they immediately leaped to the conclusion that I knew too much about it not to have tried it; sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a know-it-all schoolteacher.  And for the record, no, I haven’t tried snuff.  We talked a bit about superstition and the meanness of Tom Sawyer.

As we read, I was pleased to hear the students laugh in the right places.  I do hope they enjoy the book.   I think some of them were intimidated by the book’s size.  We have the Norton Critical Edition, which has about as much text of literary criticism in the back as it does novel text.  Students at my school pay an activity fee that covers the cost of paperback novels, but the novelty never seems to wear off when they get new books.  Each time they ask if the books are theirs to keep.  It reminds me a bit of that scene in Freedom Writers when the students get new books, and murmur over them.  The only books our students can’t keep are the textbooks or expensive anthologies that we use.

On a personal note, I have taught this class of 10th graders for two years now.  I have them for two classes this year — American Literature and Composition and Writing Seminar.  I’m really proud of how far they have come and all they have learned.  We have accomplished a lot together over the last year and a half, especially this year, and I am excited to watch them grow and learn.  I don’t think I will be teaching them next year.  I think it is a good thing to have different teachers.  But I’m going to miss them next year.

[tags]education, Huckleberry Finn[/tags]

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is, in my estimation, one of those books that everyone should be required to read. In the immortal words of no less a person than Ernest Hemingway, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn… American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” Rex Stout proclaimed in his 1969 Nero Wolfe novel Death of a Dude that the sentence Huck utters to himself after he decides to tear up the letter to Miss Watson is the “single greatest sentence in American literature”:

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

“All right, then, I’ll go to hell” — and tore it up.

Think about how much Huck was conveying in that simple sentence. Every time I read that passage, I get chills.

When I teach this novel, I have found it important to provide students with a map of some sort that they keep in their notebook for reference. Students have difficulty with the concept of traveling south in order to get to the North — specifically, to Cairo, Illinois. The Center for Learning has a unit plan that has a great map in it.

I begin a study of this novel by focusing directly on the controversy surrounding it. In order to do this, I pass out a list of the ALA’s most frequently challenged books list. I found a good one in Teaching Tolerance magazine about two years ago. These lists are widely available, however. I photocopy the list for each student, pass it out, and ask students to cross out all the titles they’ve read. What they often find is that 1) they’ve read a lot of challenged books, 2) they don’t understand why the books were challenged. This realization opens the door for a good discussion about why someone might challenge Huck Finn.

The word “nigger” appears in the book 212 times. However, in the words of Russell Baker,

“The people whom Huck and Jim encounter on the Mississippi are drunkards, murderers, bullies, swindlers, lynches, thieves, liars, frauds, child abusers, numbskulls, hypocrites, windbags and traders in human flesh. All are white. The one man of honor in this phantasmagoria is ‘Nigger Jim,’ as Twain called him to emphasize the irony of a society in which the only true gentleman was held beneath contempt.”

Eventually, your students will come to this realization, but I have found tackling the issue head-on to be an excellent way to begin the novel.

After we have our discussion, I begin the novel by reading aloud. I have a bit of a Southern twang, and I can certainly amp it up when reading Southern literature. The dialect can be difficult for students, so I have found hearing it helps them to get a feel for it.

I have not discontinued my series of posts on teaching Romeo and Juliet. I will most likely post more ideas for R&J toward the end of this week or next week. In addition, I will post further tips and ideas for teaching Huck Finn.

[tags]education, Huckleberry Finn, challenged books[/tags]