> Do teachers/professors read passages to students in higher grades?
>
> Aloha,
>
> Mac Simpson

My 10th grade students are working with "Huck Finn" right now. We read
about every other chapter aloud. I try to choose those chapters the
students find particularly difficult, satirical, poignant, etc., based
on my past experience. For example, the start of the Wilks episode can
often be "too many" for some students. Many young people also struggle
with the dialect, particularly Jim's and Nat's. Reading aloud eases the
stress and increases the comprehension and fun. Still, I believe there
is an intimacy one feels with a book read privately, so I leave many
chapters for the students to experience in the privacy of their own
minds.

On a different thread, I choose to include "Huck Finn" in the curriculum
right after "A Raisin in the Sun," so we have a strong background in
dealing with racial issues with honesty and courage, not (like Lindner
in the play) through avoidance and denial.

Before we read even the first chapter of "Huck," though, we read an
essay I copied from "English Journal" a few years back. It was written
by an African-American girl from Bryn Mawr, (I believe her name is
Delancy, but I don't have it with me at home right now), and does a fine
job of emphasizing the offensive nature of the hateful word "nigger,"
while defining Twain's use of the word for realism and, moreover, for
satire. Perhaps someone on the list has the issue of "English Journal"
that was dedicated to dealing with "Huck Finn." I loaned mine out and
never got it back.

Stanton Nesbit
Eau Claire North High School
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire