Teaching Controversy
Born to Trouble
In the past, and all too frequently in the present, teachers have introduced The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the way they introduce any other novel, with a discussion of theme, setting, or background. The racial content may be mentioned, and there may be some discussion of Twain’s use of the “N” word as a reflection of the time he is depicting, but this is often just a brief apologetic introduction before beginning the novel. As a result, many students, in particular African-American students, have found reading and discussing the book a painful, humiliating experience.This article describes just such a situation that occurred in Cherry Hill, NJ. More importantly, it describes a response to the situation that went beyond the initial divisiveness and resentment, and that found a new way to address the novel and the issues that underlie it. Notice that Katherine Schulten, the author of this article, is herself a teacher, and that she is writing to other teachers. She describes her initial skepticism about “a curriculum written by a committee as a response to political pressure.” What concerns does she bring to her exploration of this topic? What is it that she finds valuable in the Cherry Hill curriculum? Do you think she would have approached this issue differently if she were writing for a general audience instead of for teachers? Unfit for Children In our second reading, Claudia Durst Johnson gives a historical overview of the controversies surrounding Huckleberry Finn and summarizes the current debate over racism in the book. This essay was written as part of a student guide to the novel. Can you tell that Johnson has a student audience in mind? Notice that she avoids jargon and writes in clear language with straightforward statements of her meaning. Johnson’s essay is useful in part because it sets a historical context for understanding how objections to Twain’s novel shifted from concern over its coarseness to concern over its racial content. More importantly, it summarizes the positions of many important commentators on the book. The first section of the essay has a historical focus, followed by a list of 19 discussion questions on various aspects of the book. Read through these questions carefully. Although you will not be able to answer many of them until after you have read the book, they serve as a good overview of the kinds of issues and opinions that people have discussed when considering the racial issues in the novel. The next section of Johnson’s essay looks more closely at the controversy over the racial content of Huckleberry Finn. Johnson does an admirable job of summarizing the different opinions that have contributed to this complex ongoing discussion. She ends this section with quotations from several African-American scholars that show a range of opinions on the novel’s value and meaning. The final section of Johnson’s essay discusses the particular controversy over the novel’s use of “The ‘N’ word.” This issue tends to be far more volatile than the depiction of Jim, perhaps illustrating the unique emotional power of language. Johnson includes two essays prompted by the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial. A crucial piece of evidence in the trial was a recording in which police detective Mark Fuhrman, a key witness against Simpson, can be heard repeatedly using the “N” word to refer to African-Americans. The two essays Johnson excerpts were efforts to explore the reasons this word has such unparalleled power to hurt and offend. This is an issue we will explore further in the next readings for this lesson. Journal/Forum Assignment Johnson’s essay provides an essential overview of the controversy over The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Now that you have a broader understanding of the main points of discussion, go back to Katherine Shulten’s description of the Cherry Hill curriculum. Do you think this classroom approach manages to address the main objections to teaching the novel? Consider the curriculum from a teacher’s point of view. If you were teaching an English class, do you think this curriculum would be effective in setting a different context for reading the novel? Would it be enough to change the students’ classroom experience? What do you think you might do differently, or in addition? |