Introduction
Background
Discussion Starters

Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Introduction
What do you do when you’re torn between what people want for you—or from you—and what you want for yourself?
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Introduction
Huckleberry Finn lives in Missouri before the Civil
War, near the Mississippi River.
Huck is young and uneducated.
With an alcoholic and unreliable father, he has grown up mostly on his own.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Not long before the novel begins, however,
Huck has been taken to live with the Widow
Douglas and her sister.
But Huck thinks life with the two sisters is too civilized.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

He prefers living in the open and having adventures with his friend Tom Sawyer.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Huck and Tom like to plan great adventures and play pranks on people.
On one of their adventures, the two boys found a lot of money in a cave
(described in the novel
The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer).
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

One day, Huck’s father, Pap, returns to town.
Pap wants Huck’s money— and kidnaps him to get it.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

After a miserable time with his father, Huck escapes.
While he is running away, he meets Jim—a slave of Widow
Douglas’s sister—who has escaped too.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

The two set off together on a raft on the Mississippi
River—and on one of the most famous journeys in
American literature.
• What adventures will they find on the river?
• Will Huck be able to find freedom—or will civilization catch up to him?
• Should Huck help Jim or send him back to slavery?
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and
how are they still relevant today?

Mark Twain, the pen name of Samuel
Clemens, is one of the
United States’ bestknown authors.
In novels such as Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, Twain vividly depicts the lives and dialects of southern people from long ago.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Twain also uses humor and satire both to entertain and to comment on society.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn takes place in the years before the Civil War.
In the South at that time, a slave was considered property.
Stealing a hunted slave was seen as a great crime—and morally wrong.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

When Twain wrote the novel, in the 1880s, the Civil War had been fought, and the slaves had been freed.
However, conditions for
African Americans were still very difficult in many parts of the United States.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

When Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published, critics hated the novel, accusing it of “coarse fun” and “gutter realism.”
Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, wrote “If
Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them.”
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Twain welcomed the controversy, however, hoping that it would bring more sales.
The book sold fifty thousand copies in the first few months.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Today, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remains controversial.
Although it’s accepted as a classic of
American literature, some critics still accuse it of being racist, and its use in schools has been challenged.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Twain does use terms now considered racist.
However, he creates a powerful argument against slavery as well.
Also, in a way perhaps surprising for the time, he allows Jim to speak for himself, revealing truths that even Twain may have found uncomfortable.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

Many books that were written in the past contain ideas about race, gender, or class that we now view as outdated or offensive.
• How can we approach these books?
• What can we learn from them?
• Do you think there are some audiences for which they would be inappropriate? Why?
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and how are they still relevant today?

• What are some words that we use that are not used in other parts of the country? Also, think about the way that we say words. Can you think of some rules that reflect how we pronounce words?
• If you’re stuck think of how we saw coffee, drawer,
Splenda, park, etc. Draw a web on a sheet of paper and start brainstorming some of our unique words and pronunciations.
• Have you ever been judged by how you speak by people from out of state? What assumptions did they make?
• If you finish early, start reading Huck Finn.
Core Values: Communication and Higher Order Thinking Skills
Std 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary work by relating it to its contemporary or historical
background.
EQ: What are enduring questions and conflicts that writers (and their cultures) grappled with hundreds of years ago, and
how are they still relevant today?