> 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