Hello, everyone! We're writing a thesis paper. Check out our Huck Finn stuff below and welcome to the world of Vocational American Literature - reading and responding to the historically influencial works of American authors with a focus on skills-based instruction for the vocationally-minded student.

Good luck writing those thesis papers, folks! (We're writing a thesis paper about the language issue or the question of whether or not Huck is a good role model). See below for more details...

MARK TWAIN...The Voice of the South, creator of the American characters Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, eccentric character, and trend-setter. Ernest Hemingway said that all of modern American literature owes something to Mark Twain. "I said, 'who's on the cover of our AmLit book"? IT'S ME; IT'S ME!

Here's the room where Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who would later be known as Mark Twain, was born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1835.

Censorship is a dirty word! Yet there are many school systems in the world in which this novel is banned for use of offensive language, The derrogatory word "nigger" is used over 200 times in the novel. So, what's the other side of the story? Jim, an enslaved man who escapes oppression and befriends Huck is depicted as a loyal, honest man while the characters who use the foul word are presented as shallow and/or morally corrupt! Therefore, the word was used not to condemn but for effect. Some still consider the book offensive because the word is used so frequently. There are other criticisms of the work as well. But like all great art, it inspires and moves people in both positive and negative ways.

Here's an example of a Works Cited Page: (the way we are going to do it in our class).

WORKS CITED Bishop, Barbara. Personal Interview. February 10, 1999. Mills, Tabitha. Personal Interview. February 13, 1999. Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Chicago: Bound Press, 1972. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/8168/amlit.html

Click here to go to some more websites about Mark Twain and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Click here to link over to more websites about banned books and the Huck Finn language issue.

Keep learning about Mark Twain, Huck Finn, and censorship and much more at the Smithsonian Institute on-line.

Take a Huck Finn trivia quiz and prove you are the master of them all...Oh yea, you get there by clicking on the raft and saying "hairball oracle " three times.

EMAIL the American Literature class

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