[N.B. The following review was written by David Barber, on whose
behalf I am merely posting it. --T.R.]

BOOK REVIEW

     Leonard, James S. (ed.), _Making Mark Twain Work in the
     Classroom_.  Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.  Pp. 318.
     Cloth.  $49.95.  ISBN 0-8223-2278-1.  Paper, 5-1/2" x 9".
     $17.95.  ISBN 0-8223-2297-8.

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     Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:

          David Barber <[log in to unmask]>
          University of Idaho

     Copyright (c) 1999 Mark Twain Forum.  This review may not be
     published or redistributed in any medium without permission.


_Making Mark Twain Work in the Classroom_ is the third book on
teaching Twain and _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ to appear in the
past three years.  In 1997 Jonathan Arac argued, in _Huckleberry Finn
As Idol and Target_, that since the book is neither "quintessentially
American" nor useful in combating racism, and since it is racially
offensive to many African Americans, to require it in American
secondary schools is counterproductive.  In 1998 Jocelyn Chadwick-
Joshua's _The Jim Dilemma_ defended _Huck_'s inclusion in the
curriculum, seeing Jim as a heroic character who guides Huck to a
high level of racial understanding.   African American herself,
Chadwick-Joshua worked to convince black parents, in particular, that
Twain's novel provides a window into the past which their children
need to look through, however unpleasant the picture may be.

Now in 1999 James S. Leonard, co-editor of the groundbreaking _Satire
or Evasion?: Black Perspectives on_ Huckleberry Finn (1992), has
assembled twenty-one essays, by as many writers, plus his own
introduction, on how (not, in most cases, whether) to teach Twain.
Thirteen of the essays focus on _Huck_.  Most of them speak primarily
to teachers of undergraduates, but high school teachers will find the
book nearly as valuable.  Anyone who teaches _Huck_ at any level
ought to own it.  Teachers of _The Innocents Abroad_ (subject of two
essays), _A Connecticut Yankee_ (two essays), _Joan of Arc_ (one),
and Twain in general (three) should at least borrow it.  Many essays
in this book provide the kinds of insight, information, and personal
passion for teaching, and for Twain, that can dramatically advance
one's understanding and enhance one's teaching.

_Making Mark Twain Work in the Classroom_ (a delightful title, by the
way, once you start wondering what Twain would have said about it)
disappoints in only one way.  With three books on teaching
Twain/_Huck_ in three years, you would think that a more direct
dialogue would be developing on "what works," as Arac put it,
"against racism in the classroom" (_Idol and Target_ 10).  When I
began Chadwick-Joshua's book, I expected that she would respond to
him directly.  But Arac's name never appeared.  Probably her book was
in press when his came out, which is too bad, since her argument
would have been stronger had she confronted his.

In any case, by 1999, Arac's effort to stimulate debate should have
begun to draw a response.  But Leonard's collection contains no
mention of Arac, either.  Again, the slow pace of publication looks
like the culprit.  _Making Twain Work_ is really a 1997 book, as the
various "works cited" lists indicate: only once does any contributor
cite a text as recent as 1997 (Shelley Fisher Fishkin citing her own
book).  Arac's book was evidently not available when they wrote their
essays.  But the "Contributors" section does refer to Chadwick-
Joshua's 1998 _The Jim Dilemma_, and I wonder why, if Leonard could
insert this item, he could not have cited _Huckleberry Finn As Idol
and Target_ in the "Racial Issues" section of his annotated
bibliography, to acknowledge Arac's challenge to many assumptions of
his contributors.

Still, several essays in _Making Mark Twain Work in the Classroom_
advance the debate on _Huck_, and this is only one aspect of the
book's contribution.  It begins with Leonard's introduction, "Who's
Teaching Mark Twain and How?"  A useful survey of pedagogical
attitudes, methods, and resources, it is based on a survey Leonard
took in 1993 (and is therefore somewhat dated), though the sources
are as recent as 1996.  This introduction serves the same purpose as
the "Materials" section of the MLA's _Approaches to Teaching . . ._
series.

The first of the book's three sections, "Discovering Mark Twain,"
contains three general essays and four on texts other than _Huck_.
It leads with Dennis W. Eddings's "From Innocence to Death: An
Approach to Teaching Twain," which presents four stages of Twain's
career as a useful frame for teaching him: (1) developing the persona
of the Innocent, (2) drawing inspiration from his boyhood and
creating boy characters who seek freedom, (3) creating a fictional
world in which Tom and Huck are transformed into adults like Hank
Morgan and Pudd'nhead Wilson, and (4) creating a dream world in which
freedom is more illusory than ever.

S. D. Kapoor, "Race and Mark Twain," argues that Twain, even though
affected by dominant racial attitudes of his time, went beyond even
Frederick Douglass's narratives by more fully dramatizing race
relations and revealing their "human aspect" (50).  Even the
stereotyped characterization of Jim in the Phelps farm episode of
_Huck_ is part of Twain's successful presentation, Kapoor argues,
since it dramatizes whites' inability to consistently see black
people as equal.  This is not the only essay in the book to argue
that the ending of _Huck_ succeeds by criticizing white attitudes
toward African Americans.

Victoria Thorpe Miller, "_Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc_ in
Today's Classroom," argues that _Joan_ deserves a fresh reading
unbiased by its current low reputation.  With its complexities of
narrative voice, the novel can be an instrument with which to involve
students more actively, as Miller demonstrates with a class-by-class
account of her own approach.  James E. Caron, "Parody and Satire as
Explorations of Culture in _The Innocents Abroad_," explains Twain's
parodic techniques and the cultural attitudes behind his satire:
Americans' (1) sense of inferiority in relation to Europe, (2) sense
of superiority and fear of losing the American identity by too close
contact with Europe, and (3) chauvinism.

Lawrence I. Berkove, "_Connecticut Yankee_: Twain's Other
Masterpiece," presents a formalist interpretation of _Yankee_ as
unified by Twain's view of a deterministic world.  Arguing that the
inconsistencies (as commonly perceived) in plot and tone are really
elements of a tightly built structure, Berkove is not always
convincing, but is often enlightening--as in comparing Hank's cave,
encircled by a series of electrified fences, to Dante's Hell.  The
benefit he sees for students in his approach is partly the revelation
of form, partly the possibilities for mind-opening discussion of
freedom and determinism.

If you don't like Berkove's perspective, try Leonard's postmodern
approach in "A Connecticut Yankee in the Classroom," which sees not
an author pulling everything together into a unified whole but rather
one "grappling with problems of textual logic, narrative technique,
and both desired and undesired thematization" (114).  Leonard wants
students to observe how evident oppositions (sixth/nineteenth
centuries, monarchy/democracy, and such) "slip into confusion or
sameness" (114).

Ending this section, Louis J. Budd's "Opportunity Keeps Knocking:
Mark Twain Scholarship for the Classroom" connects two problems:
first, that English departments face declining enrollment in elective
courses, and second, that many faculty underestimate Mark Twain.
Budd suggests that faculty tap into Twain's continuing popularity by
offering more courses on Twain and thereby increasing student
enrollment.  What makes this essay especially interesting, however,
is not Budd's plan to save English departments, but his approach to
teaching Twain.  He advocates introducing students to scholarship; by
this he does not mean critical controversies, whose appeal to
students, he believes, is overrated.  He means primary sources, i.e.,
the writings of Twain (plus some biography), and he guides us through
Twain texts that he has found to appeal to students, and the editions
that are most useful to teachers.  The teacher's goal should be to
"guide students toward finding their personal Mark Twain" (123).

The middle section is entitled "Rediscovering _Huckleberry Finn_."
Everett Carter begins with "Huckleberry Fun," in which he sees _Huck_
as a comic book--not a tragic one--whose satire is based on well
established moral norms.  It is part of the satire that Huck
progresses only so far, that "his discovery of Jim's humanity has not
been translated into a general truth about slaves and slavery" (137).
Quoting the notorious "'Anybody hurt?'  'No'm.  Killed a nigger'"
scene, Carter asserts that Huck and Aunt Sally see eye to eye on the
difference between "anybody" and a "nigger," while the author and the
reader observe their racism.

David E. E. Sloane's ultimately enlightening essay, "Huck's
Helplessness: A Reader's Response to Stupefied Humanity," gets off to
a bad start.  Sloane sneers at critics who "somehow" find fault with
the novel's ending and other flaws.  All such critics are "recklessly
perverse," he asserts, to subject a "great world classic" to such
indignities.  In reader-response, Sloane asks: "What does the novel
make a typical reader feel?" (140-41).  But hold on!  Surely the
controversy over _Huck_ has established that there is no such thing
even as a typical _white_ or a typical _black_ reader, to say nothing
of a typical _reader_.  It does not help that he goes on to talk
about "our" responses as though "we" all agree.

Eventually, however, Sloane develops a persuasive interpretation of
the novel as accurately representing antebellum America and
dramatizing Twain's belief that "humans do not change and society
does not progress" (152).  Not even Huck is capable of lasting
change, and so he, once reabsorbed into society on the Phelps farm,
behaves badly.  Twain _wants_ us to feel frustrated, Sloane believes,
at human inadequacy and racial insensitivity--including our own.
This is an intriguing response to Arac's charge that Twain's novel
makes us complacent about race relations.

Through Leonard's editorial counterpointing, Sloane's interpretation
of the ending is followed by the late Pascal Covici Jr.'s assertion,
in "The Uses of the Last Twelve Chapters," that those who read the
book for fun usually find the ending satisfying.  For those who study
the novel in class, however, he insists that the problems of the
ending cannot be ignored.  Still, Covici argues that they can be
largely solved by focusing on the many connections between the last
twelve chapters and the rest of the novel.  The ending is seamlessly
linked to the whole novel, whose ultimate message is that human
freedom is severely limited at best.  This is a gentler version of
Sloane's thesis.  Covici's pedagogical emphasis is on creating class
situations in which students will think for themselves and arrive at
their own conclusions.

Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua's "'Blame de pint!  I reck'n I knows what I
knows': Ebonics, Jim, and New Approaches to Understanding _Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn_" focuses on language issues in _Huck_.  If
students can survive Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tupac Shakur (her
examples), why do parents worry about their exposure to Huck and
Jim's language?  How can educators be pushing ebonics in schools
while rejecting _Huck_?  Chadwick-Joshua willfully seems to ignore
the massive reaction against teaching ebonics in the schools.  But
the question of how we should react to Jim's language in particular
is important, and she forcefully argues that we must teach students
to hear and understand Jim's voice.

Her essay emphasizes that teachers need to re-examine the motives for
teaching _Huck_ and develop new methods for reaching contemporary
students.  In this discussion she performs a valuable service.  As in
her book, however, when Chadwick-Joshua argues for teaching the book,
she maintains a rigid _we vs. they_ attitude.  This is not
constructive.   One of her favorite _theys_ is the ubiquitous John
Wallace (of "racist trash" fame), who is surely among Twain critics
the easiest target since Louisa May Alcott.  But the primary _they_
are parents, and here it seems to me she is way off the mark.  Many
students all across "the socioeconomic spectrum," she claims,

     have in common . . . in the midst of all this diversity . . .
     their parents' initial and common abhorrence of _Adventures of
     Huckleberry Finn_.  The students consequently meet Jim and label
     him a man with a "wimp factor" and Huck as some kind of "guy"
     with whom they have nothing in common. (176)

She believes that if teachers can get around the alleged parent
problem, however, students will find that

     Huck and Jim are the only viable and logical vehicles who have,
     like Virgil and Beatrice in Dante's _Divine Comedy_, the
     imagination and vision to lead the audience into the essential
     dialectic that must occur if [social] reform is the goal. (179)

This may be the strongest claim ever made for Huck and Jim.

Shelley Fisher Fishkin's "The Challenge of Teaching _Huckleberry
Finn_" identifies two major obstacles to teaching _Huck_ effectively:
students' difficulty with irony and their lack of historical and
literary perspective.  How to help students to distinguish between
Twain and Huck, so they can get the irony?  For starters, she
demonstrates how the author has reminded readers of his own presence
four times by the first paragraph of the first chapter.  Then she
shows how to track for students the development of Twain's racial
attitudes.  Fishkin concludes by recommending other texts, by Twain
and others, which will help students understand the historical
contexts.  "If we want to teach _Huck Finn_," she insists, "we have
to be willing to teach other texts before it and alongside it" (190).
This point is stressed by several other contributors also.

Anthony J. Berret, S. J., "Huck Finn's Library: Reading, Writing, and
Intertextuality," details the many uses of books in _Huck_.  Some
books serve for burlesque (such as the novels that Tom Sawyer reads),
some as paradigms (when their plot provides a model for a part of
_Huck_), and others as simple sources (directly from Huck's reading
and indirectly from Twain's).  Berret suggests various student
exercises designed to bring out all this intertextuality, which will
have the effect, among others, of stressing that Twain's book is only
a book and not an objective window on reality.

There follow three technical and quite usable essays.  Beverly R.
David, "The Relationship of Kemble's Illustrations to Mark Twain's
Text: Using Pictures to Teach _Huck Finn_," explains various uses of
the Kemble illustrations, emphasizing fashion in clothes, sexual
innuendo, and race relations.  Wesley Britton's "Using Audiovisual
Media to Teach _Huckleberry Finn_" evaluates various film versions of
_Huck_ and other films and videos about Twain.  Having seen most of
the films that he mentions, I agree almost entirely with his
judgments on their quality and teaching usefulness.  In one happy
respect Britton is out of date: a video of Hal Holbrook doing _Mark
Twain Tonight_ is now available, and what a difference it makes being
able to see and not just hear Holbrook on LP's!  David Tomlinson,
"High-Tech Huck: Teaching Undergraduates by Traditional Methods and
with Computers," discusses a software program called _Exploring the
Novel_ (which he offers free to anyone interested) that he uses at
the U. S. Naval Academy, where all students are required to own
computers.  The "traditional methods" include having the students
produce news stories or editorials based on the novel's events, and
then creating a newspaper with desktop publishing equipment.

The book's final section,  "Playing to the Audience," explores ways
of teaching Twain in various college contexts.  (It is unfortunate
that high school students are not included in the audiences
discussed.)  Tom Reigstad's "_The Innocents Abroad_ Travels to
Freshman Composition" shows how to use _Innocents_ to have students
critique and imitate Twain's writing, and--by comparing Twain's early
newspaper-letter accounts to those in the book--to examine the
revision process.  In the process of describing a unit on _Huck_,
Victor Doyno, "On Teaching _Huck_ in the Sophomore Survey," reveals
classroom methods designed to get students closer to the text, such
as passing around a "question bag" for anonymous student questions,
and having students write, "for their eyes only," on personal
subjects related to Huck's situation.  Joseph A. Alvarez, "To Justify
the Ways of Twain to Students: Teaching _Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn_ to Culturally Diverse Students in an Urban Southern Community
College," explores the difficulties involved in discussing race
relations and Twain's religious satire.  Alvarez gives a useful if
standard list of sources, but more interesting are the student
responses he quotes regarding racial issues.

For me, Stan Poole's essay, "'Pretty Ornery Preaching': _Huckleberry
Finn_ in the Church-Related College," is the most enlightening in the
book.  He describes the development then failure of the anti-slavery
movement in early nineteenth-century Southern evangelicalism, as the
evangelicals, submitting to social pressure, diverted their energy
from societal progress to individual holiness.  Poole then relates
this development to Huck's moral debate in the "You can't pray a lie"
chapter, in the process of which he resurrects the Widow Douglas's
moral reputation.

     Huck's rejection of a single-minded preoccupation with personal
     holiness realizes the possibility of moral heroism implicit in
     evangelicalism before it capitulated to the ideology of slavery.
     Twain thus affirms the moral imperatives at the heart of
     evangelical Christianity--the humility, self-sacrifice, and
     concern for others expressed by the widow Douglas--in
     repudiating its practices. (289)

This perspective in effect responds to Arac's argument that Huck's
famous decision to go to Hell "defines no place where citizens can
work together in resistance" (_Idol and Target_ 61), and its interest
surely extends well beyond the church-related college.

Perhaps the most powerful of the several essays that emphasize the
personal experience of teaching Twain is the last in the collection:
Michael J. Kiskis's "'When I read this book as a child . . . the
ugliness was pushed aside': Adult Students Read and Respond to
_Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_."  Kiskis describes a course devoted
largely to _Huck_, which he taught to ten nontraditional students:
"all mid-level managers in New York state corporations" (296).
Kiskis presents the challenges of the course, to him and to the
students, and quotes several of their provocative comments.  The
essay's main message, for me anyway, is "how life experience infuses
our reading with an unexpected power" (304).

This essay collection has great value for anyone interested in Twain,
and especially, of course, for teachers.  One of its strengths is the
diversity of views expressed.  It is a worthy addition to recent
studies of Twain, and particularly of _Huck_, by Fishkin, Arac,
Chadwick-Joshua, and others.