My experience over 28 years, teaching the book in both high school and
college, is very similar to Errol's.  After the first-day, when I
"sit-on-the-front-of-the-desk-and-talk-to-the-students," class meeting
style, things have gone well.  I've occasionally shown the PBS
documentary Born to Trouble before beginning the novel.

You have to know a class, and they have to trust you and each other. . .
.but I've always found the risk of squarely facing the book and its
issues totally worth it.

Kim

Kim Martin Long
Interim Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences
Shippensburg University