Huck Finn Web Quest
Directions: Create a Google Document with me (shipdog65@gmail.com) and follow the directions on that document.
Go to the websites as directed and answer the questions that follow.
Go to www.dictionary.com and define the following words using the first definition unless
otherwise noted:
1.) encomium:
2.) excoriated:
3.) oeuvre:
4.) philistine:
5.) pious (definition 2):
6.) contrarian:
7.) imperialist:
Know the Author:
8.) In what year was Mark Twain born?
9.) In what year did he die?
10.) What event was present at both his birth and death?
11.) What was the title of his first novel and when was it published?
12.) What happened in 1861?
11.) When did he go bankrupt and why?
12.) What was the title of his best selling novel?
Go to: http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/scrapbook/index.html
13.) Why did Mark Twain give up on scrapbooks?
14.) What was his only invention that made money?
Click on The Gilded Age 1869 – 1871 on the right. Then scroll through the pages
answering these questions.
15.) Who did Mark Twain marry?
16.) Describe his study in Elmira.
17.) In the format of a short essay (5 sentences) answer the following: Mark Twain describes his book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as “a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat. “ What do you think he meant by this quote? Make sure you explain why.
Getting Past Black and White
His is an American classic that has been challenged time and again for
reasons both substantial and frivolous; Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a perennial favorite of
supporters and critics alike. In his
TIME article, “Getting Past Black and White,” Stephen Carter observes that,
“Only a few books, according to the American
Library Association, have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn, Twain's
most widely read tale. Once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as coarse. Twain
himself wrote that the book's banners
considered the novel "trash and suitable only for the slums." More recently the book has been attacked
because of the character Jim, the escaped slave
whose adventures twine with Huck's, and its frequent use of the word nigger. (The term Nigger Jim, for which
the novel is often excoriated, never appears
in it.)”
The challenge for educators required to teach The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to make it relevant in
2009. This is ultimately the challenge
and goal of teaching any piece of literature, but even more so with a
controversial classic such as Twain’s. I
have decided with my latest reading of the text that the key to unlocking the
novel is through Jim and his internal conflicts.
For the modern adolescent reader, an adult escaped slave, portrayed
through superstitious beliefs and with a complex and confusing southern
dialect, is not easy to connect with. It
might be easier to simply dismiss him and focus attention instead on Huck. But doing so neglects Jim and his very real
social struggles. It neglects the
complicated racial, social, political complexity of the time that Twain sought
to not only explore, but exploit. To
neglect understanding Jim is to allow the charges of Huck Finn as a racist book to proliferate. It allows the book to be misread and
misunderstood, and therefore not learned from.
But reality, of course, tells us that Jim, though fictional,
is rooted in reality. Jim’s experiences
are similar to those of real people. His
emotions are real emotions; his dialect a written form of a real pattern of
speech; his escaped community a mirror to the real communities of the time
period. Some real slaves, not unlike
Jim, really escaped their masters and sought to make better lives for
themselves somewhere else. The stories
of those real people might help us to accept Jim not as a confusing caricature,
but as an enlightening character that might reveal some of the realities Twain
ultimately wants his readers to explore.
By listening to and reading the accounts of those who lived
in Jim’s time and experienced the world through a lens much closer to his than
those of us in 2009, their stories and experiences might help make Jim’s a
little more understandable. Twain, Huck, and his best friend Jim are
ultimately still relevant because, as Carter observes, Twain (and his
creations) “may have done more to rile the nation over racial injustice and
rouse its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past century who
has lifted a pen.
18.) How can someone who uses the ‘N’ word in his writing also be characterized as “the man who popularized the sophisticated literary attack on racism”?
How would you describe Mark Twain? List 3 adjectives that characterize the man and the author. Be prepared to explain why you think these are appropriate descriptions.
19.)
20.)
21.)
22.) In his second opinion from the New York Tribune, besides Negroes, what other group(s) did Mark Twain consider to oppressed and perhaps not worthy of citizenship?
23.) Mr. Twain offers some contradictory quotes. He felt that offering „negroes‟ citizenship was
„startling and disagreeable‟ yet he also says „[t]he „damned naygurs‟—this is another descriptive title which has been conferred upon them by a class of our fellow citizens who persist, in the most
short-sighted manner, in being on bad terms with them in the face of the fact that they have got to
sing with them in heaven or scorch with them in hell some day in the most familiar and sociable
way, and on a footing of most perfect equality‟. What do you think about Mark Twain‟s racial views? Is he a hypocrite? How does he reconcile his seemingly opposing views? Was he a man ahead of his times? Use quotes from the articles in writing a 3 paragraph essay telling your feelings on Twain.
26 - 27.) . When was the Spanish American War? _____________________ How did it
change Mark Twain‟s views?
28.) When was the California Gold Rush?
Now that you are a Mark Twain Expert:
Go to: http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/timeline/index.html and play the game.
- Click START PLAYING
- Answer the questions on HIS LIFE: LEVEL 1
- Upon completion of LEVEL 1, click the HIS TIMES: LEVEL 1. Complete the questions below.
26 - 27.) . When was the Spanish American War? _____________________ How did it
change Mark Twain‟s views?
28.) When was the California Gold Rush?
29.) When did the last “Indian Territory”, Oklahoma, open legally for settlement?
30.) When was Uncle Tom’s Cabin published? ___________________ Why was it
important to Mark Twain?
31 - 32.) What is the Reconstruction Era? When did it end?
Literary Focus - Irony
33.) What is it?
- List three kinds:
35.)
36.)
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