Kari Saltzman

Unit Plan

112B

Teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

One of the most shameful periods in our history is slavery. Not only does the history of slavery affect the African-American community, but our country as a whole. Hatred is what pulls our country apart, and causes the majority of conflicts between communities today. Through literature and history we are able to peer through the eyes of someone else, usually someone who suffered the results of hatred such as slavery, and gain a better understanding of our country�s mistakes and the lessons they learned. Literature and history are important to keep fresh in our minds to keep from making the same mistakes. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explores the story of a young boy Huck, who chooses to help free a slave in his community, Jim. Together they work to take Jim up the river to the north where Jim will be a free man. Even though Huck uses this journey to escape his reality and have some fun, he ends up learning what a honorable person Jim is, as Jim provides a father figure in Huck�s life.

The curriculum I am proposing uses the canonical work of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as its centerpiece, followed and introduced by related pieces that allow students to gain an understanding of the overall themes of the text. This unit would probably best be taught in the eleventh grade, or when students are working on American Literature. This piece explores the history of the time period when the north separated from the south, and slavery was declining. However, this decline does not take away from the fact that the reality of slave life was still as harsh as ever, and was worth risking your life to escape from.

Specifically, The Adventures of Huckleberry theme speaks to the themes of tolerance, morality, racism, and slavery. Huck is a young boy without a real family connection. His father is absent most of the time, so Huck is left to discover the world on his own. Huck�s best friend is Tom Sawyer who loves to make adventure out of any and everything. When Huck first agrees to help Jim escape to the north, he sees it as an opportunity to have his own adventure like Tom. He realizes along the way that he has to decide what and who to believe. He constantly must battle what the �civilized� society tells him he should do and what he should believe, and what his instincts tell him. Fortunately, he learns to trust his instincts and helps Jim even if it is against his society�s mores.

Students will gain a better understanding of Huck�s dilemma if they first understand the magnitude of slavery and the prevalence of discriminating thoughts throughout the United States. Once the students have begun to gain sympathy for slaves, they can better understand the character of Jim. This unit will go through this process and end with other ways to understand the themes of the novel.

Introducing the Unit

Before your students read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn it is important for them to become familiar with the themes of the text. This novel deals with the main character escaping his reality to take a slave on a journey to freedom. These introductory activities will allow your students become familiar with the topics discussed in the novel.

1. Have your students role play with one another. In scenario one, one student tells another that they plan to run away because of circumstances that can not be controlled. The first student can play with the reason why, and the student hearing the situation must decide what to do. Do they break their friends trust? Do they try to keep them safe by telling an adult?
2. Have your students role play with one another. Imagine that a law is passed in the state of California that any adult who was not born in California must become a servant to those who were born in California (This state can be replaced with another). What would be your reaction?
3. After either of the first two activities have your students write for 20 minutes about their reaction to either scenario. Has the student ever had to deal with keeping a secret? Were they able to do so? Why or why not? Were they not? How did this affect their relationship? Or do they see justice in the reasoning for enslaving other members of the communities? What would they do if they had to be a servant? Would they try to escape or hope things would change?
4. Slavery is an important component of the text, have your students research slavery and find out how many slaves there were during our country�s slave period and how many non-slaves. They can break down estimates per state or however they choose, and create a poster board for a visual representation of the amount of slaves. It is important for the class to realize the overwhelming situation of slavery to understand the text.
5. Have the class research the abolitionist movement to understand the reasoning the anti-slave activists used to abolish slavery.
6. Have the students write for twenty minutes on an adventure or vacation they once had. What happened on this adventure or vacation? What made it exciting? What did you learn or achieve? Were there problems or obstacles along the way? Who went on this adventure with you?
7. Read poetry about slavery aloud to the class and have them first discuss in small groups the significance of the poem, and then open up the whole class for discussion. Suggested poems are the following.

We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Dreams by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

With these two poems students can begin to understand the feelings of slaves from an African American perspective. �We Wear the Mask� explores the idea that slaves must put on a brave face, for there is no one who will sympathize with them. There pain and sadness is ignored, and they refrain from giving up and sing and put on a �mask.� �Dreams� discusses the idea of hope, that slaves had to retain hope to survive. Both these poems are insights into the optimism slaves had to keep even in the cruelest of conditions.

Teaching the Unit

There have been debates on whether The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be taught in the classroom for its use of language. After reading the text, have your students debate the importance of language in the text. Why does Mark Twain use such language? What point is he getting across? Would it be the same without it?

Another way for the students to understand Huck�s language is to have them translate a modern dialogue between to characters into the voice of Huck and Tom? What did they learn from translating the text? How much impact did each individual word have on the overall meaning?

Discuss the characteristics of the main characters and list their most important actions? How do their personalities shape the choices they make? Have any of the characters grown? Or do they not learn anything from what happens?

Have students pick five important quotations from the novel, and have them analyze these quotes outside of class. Once they have done this have them get into small groups and explain to the members in their group why they chose two of the five quotes, and what significance it had. After discussion ask the students to write about if their opinion has changed or have they learned more about the characters from their other group members.

Extending the unit

After the students finish reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn it is important for the students to make connections with other texts that are tailored to a young adult perspective. The following list of novels, are young adult novels that explore themes that were present in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Many of these novels deal with slavery and the problems that arise from racism and discrimination. Jim becomes a central character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and readers have extreme sympathy for him. However, his experience as a slave is not discussed in detail. With further reading students can gain a better understanding why it was so cruel of Huck�s society to treat Jim with such disrespect. In addition, there are novels that center on the journey. Huck�s journey down the river appealed to him in the first place because it was like an adventure and an escape from his reality. Other novels explore this theme as well, and will allow students who feel like escaping from their reality a possibility through literature.

Students may choose to read these novels outside of class, or in small groups. It might be useful to introduce these texts right after discussing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with a Book Pass activity. Each student will start with one of these books and will have one minute to look over the novel before passing it on to their class mate. This will allow the students to become familiar with each book, making it easier for them to select which novels they would choose to read outside of class.

If the students choose to read one of these novels, or another novel related to the theme of the class, pre-approved by the teacher, there are a variety of ways that can incorporate what they have read into a class.

1. The student(s) can write a summary on the novel, and explain the most significant themes of the book using quotations to explain their though process.
2. The students can get into groups and act out the novel, choosing the most important scenes and dialogue to incorporate to give the entire class a more visual representation of the book.
3. The student(s) can create a front cover for the novel that they feel reflects the important values of the novel. This will allow the creative visual side to come out in the students.
4. The student(s) can use another form of expression, a poem, a play, a monologue, a newspaper review, a television review, a talk show, an interview, etc. to recreate or critique the novel in some way and perform it for the class if possible.

Young Adult Literature Selections

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

This narrative explores the hardships Frederick Douglass endured growing up as a slave. He struggles to learn to read because he knows that it is his only ticket out of slavery. Douglass overcomes tremendous obstacles to achieve his goal, and this inspiring text hits the soul of every reader. This narrative will allow children to understand the character of Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn more clearly.

Faulkner, William. Barn Burning

This is a story about a father who can not control his urges to set things on fire. The book opens with him setting the neighbors barn on fire, which forces the family to relocate and start life all over. His outrageous and unjustified actions give his son reason to doubt his own father as Huck doubts his father�s judgment in The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn. This novel deals with race and cultural problems as well.

Gordon Sheila. Waiting for the Rain

This novel explores the friendship of Tengo and Frikkie, two boys of different races from South Africa during Apartheid. Like Jim and Huck, they must deal with societal perspectives of their friendship and learn what is most important to them.

Nolan, Han. Born Blue

Practically born into the foster care system, Janie must try and escape the physically and emotionally abusive foster care homes in which she is placed through singing. What Janie knows of her parents is simply that her mother is a heroin addict and her father was completely absent. Janie�s situation is similar to Huck in that they both are on their own to discover who they are and what they will believe in. They can only be guided by what they feel on the inside and take caution from what their society tells them.

Hess, Karen. Witness

This book is a collection of free verse poetry that explores all the different perspectives of the community members in a small town in Vermont. The town faces controversy and discrimination when the Ku Klux Klan enters their community, causing some members to turn on each other. This book shows the importance of distinguishing societal views from one�s own views like Huck must do in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Paulsen, Gary. Nightjohn

Nightjohn is an insight into the incredibly harsh realities of slavery. Through the eyes of Nine year old Sarny, we watch the struggle to simply learn to read and write, in an attempt to escape in some way from their abusive masters. While this novel is very blunt and a bit gruesome, it speaks the truth of what life was like as a slave, and provides readers of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn insight into the life of Jim as well as sympathy.

Rinnaldi, Ann. Wolf by the Ears

This is a story of intertwined race relationships as we hear from the possible daughter of Thomas Jefferson and an African American woman. The young girl, Harriet struggles to find her own identity, when she knows that physically she belongs to both races Harriett discovers her own moral system and believes in herself, as Huck learns to do in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Sadat, Rohina. My Forbidden Face: Growing Up under the Taliban

This novel explores the incredibly harsh circumstances that Latifa experienced under the control of the Taliban before September 11, 2001. With the least of freedom her family suffers and is unable to experience the simple joys of reading, watching television, taking pictures, listening to music, and going outside. The citizens of this country are treated like slaves, without freedom. Latifa�s experience can be compared to the reality of Jim�s life in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because they are both without freedom.

Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye

This novel is of the journey of a young man trying to discover what is important to him. As Holden Caulfield escapes to New York, he discovers that the adult world is not as exciting as he thought it could be and returns to his family. While this is a modern setting, Holden�s journey is similar to Huck�s journey of self discovery in The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn.

Taylor, Mildred. Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry

This novel is set in the 1930s after the Depression and before the Civil Rights Movement. The main character is Cassie who is a young Black girl who must face the realties of racism in her community. This novel explores a young girls ability to overcome hardships, as Huck and Jim do in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Concluding Activities

At the end of this unit students should have a better perspective on slavery and the affects it has on our country. Students will have sympathy for those who are put in unbearable situations against there will, and will gain perspective on the choices of our country and hopefully understand the important of having an opinion on these issues. These emotions are often expressed extremely well through art. Have student either draw or write a poem that reflects on the emotions they have felt for the entire unit and put them all together in book for the class to look at. Each new year the teacher will have another book of art to reflect the feelings of each class. And new classes can see how their artwork and poetry compares to the previous years.

Works Cited

Donelson, Kenneth L., and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Literature for Today's Young Adults. Boston: Pearson Custom, 2006.

"Language Arts: Novel Guides." Class Zone. <http://www.classzone.com/novelguides/litcons/huckfinn/guide.cfm>.

"Teaching Literature and Writing with Technology." TLWT. <http://thwt.org/huckleberryfinn.htm>.

Warner, Mary L. Adolescents in the Search for Meaning. Lanham: The Scarecrow P, Inc., 2006.