Making Mark Twain Work in the Classroom

by Leonard, James S.; Eddings, Dennis W. (CON); Miller, Victoria Thorpe (CON); Caron, James E. (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780822322979
• ISBN10: 0822322978
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-05-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

How does one teach Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, a book as controversial as it is central to the American literary canon? This collection of essays edited by James S. Leonard offers practical classroom methods for instructors dealing with the racism, the casual violence, and the role of women, as well as with structural and thematic discrepancies in the works of MarkTwain. Addressing slavery and race, gender, class, religion, language and ebonics, Americanism, hoax, and textual issues of interest to instructors and their students, the contributors offer guidance derived from their own demographically diverse classroom experiences. By placing Twain's work within the context of nineteenth-century American literature and culture, Making Mark Twain Work in the Classroom will interest all instructors of American literature. It will also provoke debate among Americanists and those concerned with issues of race, class, and gender as they are represented in literature. Contributors. Joseph A. Alvarez, Lawrence I. Berkove, Anthony J. Berret, S.J., Wesley Britton, Louis J. Budd, James E. Caron, Everett Carter, Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua, Pascal Covici Jr., Beverly R. David, Victor Doyno, Dennis W. Eddings, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, S. D. Kapoor, Michael J. Kiskis, James S. Leonard, Victoria Thorpe Miller, Stan Poole, Tom Reigstad, David E. E. Sloane, David Tomlinson

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Who's Teaching Mark Twain, and How?	1	(30)
James S. Leonard
I DISCOVERING MARK TWAIN
From Innocence to Death: An Approach to Teaching Twain	31	(9)
Dennis W. Eddings
Race and Mark Twain	40	(15)
S. D. Kapoor
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc in Today's Classroom	55	(10)
Victoria Thorpe Miller
Parody and Satire as Explorations of Culture in The Innocents Abroad	65	(23)
James E. Caron
Connecticut Yankee: Twain's Other Masterpiece	88	(22)
Lawrence I. Berkove
A Connecticut Yankee in the Postmodern Classroom	110	(11)
James S. Leonard
Opportunity Keeps Knocking: Mark Twain Scholarship for the Classroom	121	(10)
Louis J. Budd
II REDISCOVERING HUCKLEBERRY FINN
``Huckleberry Fun''	131	(9)
Everett Carter
Huck's Helplessness: A Reader's Response to Stupefied Humanity	140	(13)
David E. E. Sloane
Teaching Huckleberry Finn: The Uses of the Last Twelve Chapters	153	(11)
Pascal Covici Jr.
``Blame de pint! I reck'n I knows what I knows'': Ebonics, Jim, and New Approaches to Understanding Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	164	(18)
Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua
The Challenge of Teaching Huckleberry Finn	182	(18)
Shelley Fisher Fishkin
Huck Finn's Library: Reading, Writing, and Intertextuality	200	(16)
Anthony J. Berret, S.J.
The Relationship of Kemble's Illustrations to Mark Twain's Text: Using Pictures to Teach	216	(14)
Huck Finn Beverly R. David
Using Audiovisual Media to Teach Huckleberry Finn	230	(7)
Wesley Britton
High-Tech Huck: Teaching Undergraduates by Traditional Methods and with Computers	237	(12)
David Tomlinson
II PLAYING TO THE AUDIENCE
The Innocents Abroad Travels to Freshman Composition	249	(8)
Tom Reigstad
On Teaching Huck in the Sophomore Survey	257	(11)
Victor Doyno
To Justify the Ways of Twain to Students: Teaching Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Culturally Diverse Students in an Urban Southern Community College	268	(12)
Joseph A. Alvarez
``Pretty Ornery Preaching'': Huckleberry Finn in the Church-Related College	280	(12)
Stan Poole
``When I read this book as a child ... the ugliness was pushed aside'': Adult Students Read and Respond to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	292	(17)
Michael J. Kiskis
Contributors	309	(4)
Index	313