Reading Quiz--Due Monday by 6:00 am

Answer the following questions on the content of chapters 7-15. Cut and paste into Microsoft Word and send your answers via email as an attachment.

1. For what did Huck dive in the water?
2. What did Huck drop "so as to look like it had been done by accident?"
3. What was Huck's destination once he was in the canoe?
4. Why was the ferry-boat firing the cannon?
5. What did Huck find that made his "heart jump up amongst his lungs?"
6. Why was Jim afraid of Huck?
7. Why didn't Huck believe that bees didn't sting idiots?
8. What did Jim say that the little birds said?
9. Were they right?
10. How did the man in the house die?
11. What did Huck and Jim find sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat?
12. After Jim got bit by the rattlesnake, what did he have Huck do with the rattles?
13. Why does Huck think that Jim got bit by the snake?
14. What two objects did they find in the stomach of the catfish?
15. Who is Sarah Williams?
16. Where is Sarah from?
17. What three ways did Mrs. Loftus ascertain Sarah's true gender?
18. What two items did Huck and Jim decide to NOT "borrow?"
19. According to Huck Finn, how much do steamboat captains make per month?
20. What's the name of the wreck?
21. According to Huck Finn, how many wives did Solomon have?
22. How many boxes of cigars did Huck and Jim get from the ferry-boat?
23. How did Louis the XVI die?
24. Where did Huck lose the raft?

Reading Assignment

Enough messing around. Let's knock this puppy out. By Monday 11/5 please have read through chapter 15 of Huckleberry Finn.

Oh Where, Oh Where in the Literary World is Mark Twain?

Caveat: Be sure to read all of this post as it contains two individual assignments.

Well. I had beautifully written, accurately summarized, carefully documented lecture notes on Realism and Mark Twain. However, in the great computer crash of 2007, they were rendered unrecoverable, as evidenced by the error message that I have received numerous times as I have attempted to recover them. In the absence of said notes, I am reminded that students have brains too and that they are capable of reading information, synthesizing and summarizing it. So I decided to give you the sources that I used and encourage you to use your brains. So here they are:

http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap5/5intro.html

http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/amer_realism.htm

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/lit5.htm

All these site, in some way, place Mark Twain on and within the literary continuum. After you read through them, and the first six chapters (you should have already read 4) of Huck Finn, give me a 150-200 word paragraph in which you discuss the ways that you see the elements each of these articles discuss beginning to emerge in Huck Finn. Due Wednesday.

Also, in class tomorrow, we will be having a long delayed conversation about those first four chapters of Huck Finn. Here are the questions that we will be addressing in our conversations. I'd like for you to spend some time collecting your thoughts and come armed and dangerous with your answers to the questions. You are required to post answers to your favorite of the list.

Here they are:

1. What do you think about the warning that Twain opens Huck Finn with? What purpose do you think it serves? Why is it there?

2. What is your first impression of Huck? Why?

3. Discuss Hucks living situation. What affect does this have on you the reader? Does it make you sympathize with him more or not? Why?

4. Twain chooses a 13-year-old boy as narrator for his novel. In what way does this help to accomplish Twain’s purpose? Discuss the ways in which a young, innocent narrator can make a profound statement about the hypocrisy of his society.

5. Compare and contrast Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Consider how they treat Jim, their approach to problem solving, their way of planning the gang’s adventures, their attitudes toward books and learning, and their family experiences.

6. List both scenes which establish superstition as a theme in the novel. How do these scenes help establish character? How do they serve as foreshadowing?

7. Analyze the role of respectability in Tom Sawyer’s supposedly lawless gang. Why is it mandatory for each member to have a respectable family? Examine the idea that Huck, who has had more experience with breaking the law than any of the others, comes close to being excluded from the gang.

7.

Wednesday's class

Ms. Amos came to me after class today and invited our class to attend the presentation by Dr. Delaino (PJC President) on Wednesday at 10:30. Not only do you get a chance to see, hear, and ask any burning questions you have of the president, but you also get free lunch. I accepted on your behalf. We will meet in the commons (email me if you don't know where that is). Find me so that you will get your 10 extra credit points.

You'll have a new blog to reply to tomorrow.

Mrs. M

Mark Twain

I hope that you are as excited about our new literary adventure as I am. Mark Twain, on my list of favorite authors, is right behind Faulkner and O'Connor for a variety of reasons--hey, maybe that could be a blog question at the end of the year--why are these Mrs. McGuire's favorite authors? That would be an interesting read for me--to see how you think I think.

Anyway, back to Twain. I'm providing you some resources to augment the information in the text and illuminate your reading of Huck Finn. With Twain, as with previous authors, biography is important. So here is a really good biography.

http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml

http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/twain_tree.pdf

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g4164h+pm004230))

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/pan:@field(NUMBER+@band(pan+6a13683))

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/index2.html

That should be enough to keep you busy for a while.

So for your actual assignment for this blog, I'd like for you to tell me in about 150 word, well-developed paragraph the general impression you have of Twain (Clemens) after you read through all this information.

Happy reading--

Mrs. M