Banned Kids: Huck and Scout

SYLLABUS

CLICK TO PRINT WELCOME/SYLLABUS

WELCOME

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to “Banned Kids!” Here is the reading schedule for the course:

First Week (September 14)    Read up to Chapter 20, considering these thoughts as you read:

1. One way to look at the novel is to see it as a coming-of-age or bildungsroman; so think about how Huck is developing.
2. Are you finding a unifying theme?  Consider the river journey as the  vehicle where Twain  addresses certain topics such as gentility, sentimentality, lies, truth,  child abuse, regional humor, friendship,  religion, etc.

Second Week (September 21)    Finish the novel and consider the following:

1. What is your reaction to the final section, “The Evasion?” Do you think it is the place where, according to Ernest  Hemingway, Twain lost his nerve? Or is it an attempt to

return to the charm of the novel’s earliest chapters?  Lastly, is it a solution to the problematic content of the novel?

2. Consider the Author’s Notice. Have you found a motive, a moral, and finally a plot?

Third Week (September 28)      Complete To Kill a Mockingbird.

Fourth Week (October 5)            Comparison of the two works.

As I indicated in the course description, any edition of either novel is fine.  I’m using the Penguin Classic edition of Huckleberry Finn with a forward by Azar Nafisi.  As far as I can tell, To Kill a Mockingbird paperback editions simply have different covers:  I’m using the one with Scout staring at a mockingbird in a tree.

If by the end of the course, you find yourself very curious about Mark Twain, I cannot recommend highly enough Mark Twain:  A Life by Ron Powers.

See you soon,

Leona