Lesson Overview:

This lesson, the fourth in a four-part unit on Mark Twain, focuses on the content and style of development in Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and explores the nature of Tom Sawyer as a youthful "American Adam."

Length of Lesson:

Seven 45-minute periods

Instructional Objectives:

Students will:

• add to their discernment of Mark Twain as an American “voice.”
• appreciate the power of memory as inspiration for creative expression.
• become acquainted with the topography of the Southwestern Mississippi River Basin.
• become better acquainted with the regional manners, mores, attitudes and values of the pre-Civil War Southwestern Mississippi River towns.
• build a variety of written responses to assignments.
• consider the nature of the American character and the forces that have helped to shape its mythic aspects.
• develop comparisons of literary selections.
• expand their experience in explicating the structural devices and linguistic elements of narrative.
• explore the impact of environment on the shaping of the individual.
• gain new appreciation for why Mark Twain's literary achievements position him as one of America’s most highly valued authors.
• participate in collaborative problem-solving tasks.
• use their personal early adolescent experience to gauge the validity of Mark Twain’s account of early adolescence.

Supplies:

• A topographic map of the Missouri Mississippi River basin
• Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New York: Viking Press, 1987.

Instructional Plan:

Activity A

Consider initiating the study of Mark Twain's, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by having students construct a framework that will help illuminate the exposition of the Tom Sawyer narrative. The framing could include such aspects as details of the geographical and cultural environments of the type of community that served as inspiration for the setting of the novel, and some background of the historical time period in which the narrative is set.

Share with students that Mark Twain was born in Florida, Missouri, grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, and drew heavily in his development of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (and many other of his texts) from memories of his boyhood days in Hannibal. Divide the class into collaborative groups (2 to 3 students in a group). After locating Hannibal, Missouri, on a map, assign each group one or more of the following topics to research in Web and print media (also included in the accompanying Research Topics handout. Ask each group to prepare a brief overview of their findings to present to the class.

Gather data about the nature of the landscape around Hannibal. Is the Mississippi River narrow or broad in the vicinity of Hannibal? Are there challenging currents? Are there small river islands? Is the area around Hannibal primarily woods, boulder, prairie or a combination of those landscapes? What is the prevailing climate? You may wish to make a sketch of the topography of the area to accompany your presentation.

What was the cultural climate of American village towns in the Missouri/Illinois Mississippi River basin in the 1840s and 1850s? What role did the steamboat play in their development? Did the railroad run through or near the villages in that time period? What would have been the prevailing architecture of the houses and church(es)? What types of shops and shop buildings would have been established? Consider making a sketch of your perception of the layout of a Missouri river village town in 1840-1850 to accompany your presentation.

Gather data about the American one-room schoolhouse in the 1840s-1850s. Who attended these schoolhouses? Who taught? Was there more than one teacher? Did the teacher(s) have a college degree? How were classes organized? What was the curriculum? What connotative properties would you ascribe to "the one-room schoolhouse"?

What was the Missouri Compromise? Although negotiated formally in 1821 when Missouri became a state, in what ways might it have affected the inhabitants and culture of river towns such as Hannibal by 1850? What does the long-reaching effect have to do with Mark Twain?

What was center of social life in towns such as Hannibal in the the 1840s-1850s? Collect some specifics about the nature of social gatherings. What would the dress fashions be? For adults? For children? (Consider making some sketches.) Would there be social dancing? If so, what would the dancing and the accompanying music be like? What type of people do you think would be considered the social elite of the town? Whom do you think would be the outcasts? Why?

Following class presentations on the above topics, ask students to develop a written profile of a hypothetical Missouri Mississippi River village town. Advise students to draw detail from the oral presentations to capture the geographical setting and colloquial flavor of the cultural fabric of their hypothetical place and its people. Ask students also to name the town and describe an event that sparks certain reactions among some of the town inhabitants. For instance, students could write about the arrival of a steamboat, the arrival of a new family in the town, an incident in the one-room schoolhouse or in a social gathering, a shocking incident, etc.

Activity B

Have students read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Consider using the following study questions for collaborative and individual problem-solving assignments on the text.

Do any of the details of your hypothetical Missouri Mississippi River village town and environs match Twain's descriptions of the village in which Tom Sawyer lives? If so, develop a brief written comparison of specific ways the two villages match. Consider geographical features of the environs of both, the layout of your town in relation to St. Petersburg, aspects of the cultural life, and the nature of the people in both sources.

The term "episodic" is used to describe the structural pattern of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Clarify what the term means and explain in what specific ways the structure of the text fulfills the definition of episodic.

Select three episodes from the text as centerpieces for the following problems of analysis: (Note: to cover the full text, consider having collaborative groups responsible for different episodes of the novel. Each group could develop a written account and/or oral presentation, using the following guidelines of analysis, to share with the class):

• What characters are involved in each episode?
• What are their relationships to each other?
• What specific "event(s)" occurs in each episode?
• How does each character react to the event(s)?

What artistic purpose does the episode serve in relation to the rest of the novel? Does it move a key thread of the narrative forward? Does it reinforce the way Twain has thus far developed the characters involved? Does it give new insight into the personalities of the characters involved? Does it introduce a new thread that will be sustained in the plot line? What is Tom's role in the episodes? Is he outsmarting others? Defending his turf? Showing off? Having second thoughts? Trying to beat the odds?

How would you sum up Tom's relationship with his Aunt Polly? With Becky Thatcher? With Huck Finn? (Do not oversimplify in explaining the relationships.)

What impact does each episode have on Tom? Does it reinforces his self-confidence or challenge it? Does it make him feel guilty, pleased with himself, happy, or dejected? Does it put him in a dilemma? Does it edge him into a new level of maturity? Other?

Activity C

Although The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is not usually perceived as being one of Twain's satirical selections, Twain builds humorous satire within the text, poking fun at various types of people, and debunking established patterns of behaviors and beliefs.

Ask students to find at least five examples of satire in Mark Twain's text. Suggest that students give attention, in selecting their examples, to Twain's description of characters and their behavioral patterns and interrelationships, and to different locales and events in the village. Encourage students to assess the processes of his satirizing; for instance, understatement, caricature, exaggeration, the inner reaction of the central characters to each other and to situations, etc.

Ask students to assess whether or not the examples of satire they encounter are gentle or have a strong edge of societal criticism inherent in the humor. If they find examples with an edge, ask them to explain Twain's intended target(s).

As a follow-up, assign students to develop an in-class written analysis of at least two of their examples. Advise them to delineate specific ways Twain builds his satire in their selections. Consider asking students to work in pairs for peer evaluations of the responses. Construct a peer evaluation rubric that weights the precise explanation of Twain's specific techniques of satirizing in the novel.

Activity D

This activity explores ways to examine the characterization of Tom Sawyer from diverse perspectives:

As an informal in-class writing exercise, ask each student to develop a personal assessment of Tom Sawyer. The assessment should answer the following questions:

• How old is Tom?
• What are some of his basic personality traits? How does he relate to his peers?
• Would you like him as a friend, if you were (or are) about the same age you have indicated as his age? Why? Why not?
• Do you see him as a simple or as a complex personality? Explain your position with specific evidence from the text.

R.W.B. Lewis, in his book entitled The American Adam, argues that the profile of the American character, as it began to crystallize in the first half of the 19th century, was one of a "new man" in a "new world," "innocent," seeking to live the "natural" life, working to free himself from the "shackles" of past conventions, beliefs, and attitudes. This "Adamic archetype"—wide-eyed, curious, compassionate, independent, clever, self-made—would take on mythic proportions, as he went forth into the open road of the frontier.

Consider having students examine Tom Sawyer as a youthful "American Adam." Encourage them to give thought to such aspects as Tom's relationship with Aunt Polly and other authority figures, his relationships with his peers, his rebellion against rules, his need to escape to nature, and his need to prove himself in various ways in his adventures. Consider embedding this discussion in an examination of the impact of the American frontier on the shaping of the American character. Such a discussion could pinpoint what geographical area was considered frontier in the 1830-1850 time period. It could also include an examination of the psychological impact of the wide open spaces of the American West on American consciousness.

For 11th and 12th grade students who have studied Calvinist doctrine, Puritanism, and the counter-arguments of Rousseau, consider adding the question of Tom's guilt. Raise the question, for instance, of whether or not there is evidence of a Puritan strain inherent in the American character that operates in tension with this image of Tom as a born-anew and open, nature-loving adventurer. Encourage them to explore the center of Tom's guilt, including what generates it, and how he deals with it. Suggest that students reexamine the cultural climate of the village town, its institutions, and inhabitants as part of this exploration of a Puritan strain.

Ask students to make a jot-list of words and phrases they would use to describe Huck Finn. Follow with a free-write assignment in which students develop a comparative analysis of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Suggest that they consider whether or not there are common denominators as well as differences in comparing the two figures.

Ask students which of the two characters they perceive as being the closest to the "American Adam" image? (At first glance, the answer may seem obvious. Careful scrutiny of the two characters, however, could initiate a provocative discussion.)

In the Preface to the 1876 edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain shares with the reader that most of the adventures in the book really occurred, drawn from his experiences and that of his schoolmates. He also states that "Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer, also, but not from an individual—he is a composite of three boys whom [Twain] knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture."

Ask students to consider the implication of Twain's statement "composite order of architecture" in assessing the character Tom Sawyer. A dictionary definition of the word "composite" reads: "made up of various parts or elements; compound" (from Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, version 3.0, Oxford University Press). Ask student if they find distinct elements within Tom's personality and behavioral modes? If so, what are they? Do you think that the composite adds to his appeal as a character and contributes substance to the narrative? How, specifically? Does the interplay of composite elements within Tom help Twain articulate the immaturity, indecisions, fears, frustrations, self-deprecation, joys, and self-exploration inherent in growing up? Tell students to take a position on these questions, and support thier opinion with examples from the text.

Consider assigning (for grades 10-12) the short story "Araby" from James Joyce's Dubliners. Encourage students to develop a comparative analysis of Tom and the boy in "Araby." Suggest to students that some areas of consideration could be the reaction to basic surroundings, the threshold teen boy's inner struggle to understand and deal with his new feelings about girls, the self-assessments of predicaments, and the epiphanies of limitations and defeat.

Call attention to the fact that both sources are the authors' retrospective accounts of boyhood. Note that the exposition of each story is built off of the actual geographical location in which each author spent his boyhood. Ask students to consider ways the interplay of memory of youth chronicled from an adult perspective add artistic power to the thematic threads of the two sources.

Note differences between the tone of the two stories. Ask students to consider the impact of the environment in which each author grew up as a factor in the shaping of the tone quality of each source. Raise the question of how the innocence of the American frontier environment of Twain's boyhood differs from the bitter Irish Catholic/Protestant conflict that permeated the environment of Joyce's life, and how these differences contribute to the dissimilar tone qualities of the two works.

If time allows, ask older students to do a free-write in which they record memories of turning 11, 12, or 13. Consider initiating the free-write by asking students to close their eyes and call up a visual memory of a specific encounter that occurred in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade. Persuade them, still with their eyes closed, to focus the memory, identifying people, interactions, conversations, their emotional response to people and the situation. Encourage them to sharpen the focus (still with eyes closed), then to read the focus for detail—faces, color, landscape, etc. Then, ask the students to record the scene in writing, integrating all of the above frames of memory.

Activity E

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is rich in its integration of superstitions that have prevailed in various segments of American society—particularly in the South and West. Ask students to identify several of these superstitions as they work through the text. Initiate a discussion about Tom's recognition of various omens generated by superstitions and how Tom and his friends rationalize experiences related to the omens. Ask students to identify the ways the dwelling on superstitions contributes to the characterization of Tom and to the advancement of the narrative.

Ask students if they are superstitious. Encourage them to share their superstitions and their reactions if an omen occurs. Ask them to poll family members for other examples of superstition and to inquire through what source(s) the family member first encountered the example(s).

Consider, if appropriate for the grade level and discipline, putting together a written collection of superstitions. Ask students interested in art to develop scenes that portray the omens and reactions to some of the examples included.

Activity F

Introduce the term "spelunking." After defining the word, inquire if any students have done any cave exploring, and, if so, ask them to share their experiences. Follow with a discussion of what students know about the "geography" of caves (stalactites, stalagmites, etc.). Then ask them to assess the authenticity of Twain's descriptions of a cave in Chapters XXIX, XXX, XXXI, and XXXIII.

After asking students to recount Tom and Becky's adventure in the cave, point out that several of the episodes in the book put Tom, Huck, and others in frightening situations. Ask students to develop a written account of an incident in which they have been frightened, or to develop a hypothetical scary situation in which they could have been involved. Encourage them to avoid sci-fi responses and position their hypothetical event in a setting with which they are basically familiar.

Activity G

For culminating experiences, engage students in one or more of the following activities (topics are also listed on the accompanying Essay Topics) handout:

Compose a formal essay (3-5 pages) on one of the following two topics.

Option A

In his essay collection Criticism and Fiction, William Dean Howells argues that literature and art should be "the expression of life … not to be judged by any other test than their fidelity to it." He expands his argument with the provocative metaphor of an ideal versus a real grasshopper, noting that the ideal grasshopper is "made up of wire and cardboard, very prettily painted in a conventional tint," therefore denying the "simple, natural, and honest" portrayal of life that should be the center of art.

Howells' "expression of life" statement might be considered the credo of the new Realism that became a dominant literary movement in the last half of the 19th century. He seems to define realism in terms of the objective, photographic recording of experience, but in doing so, ignites an intellectual argument about what is the meaning of the term "real"?

Your task, after careful consideration of the above statements, is to assess Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in relation to Howells' argument. In other words, is the text an "ideal grasshopper," "wire and cardboard, very prettily painted in a conventional tint" or is it "the real grasshopper," capturing the "fidelity" of life in "simple, natural, honest" expression?

Consider launching your analysis by defining what you consider the term "real" encompasses. Draw vigorously from the text to clarify how the text specifically supports or does not fulfill your definition.

Option B

Develop an analysis of one or more (not more than three) threads of the novel that you find the most appealing. Consider some of the following:

• Tom's tricks on others
• the portrayal of adolescent love
• the characterization of Aunt Polly
• scenes of jealousy between Tom and Becky
• characterizations of Becky Thatcher
• suspense scenes
• hero scenes
• Sunday school/church scenes
• the courtroom trial
• the portrayal of playground dynamics
• Tom and Huck's underlying compassion for the underdog
• Huck Finn's reaction to civilization

In your essay, include analysis of both content and process (specific ways Twain develops the topic). Avoid a laundry list response. Control your paper with a thesis that sets up an overriding critical position from which to examine your choices.

Give an oral presentation on comparisons between The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and one or more other texts that are built around adolescents; for instance: Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Eight Cousins, or Little Men; Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island; The Hardy Boys series; the Nancy Drew series; The Little Rascals re-runs, particularly the schoolhouse scenes. Remember that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was first published in 1875. In your analysis, compare the nature of the narratives and episodes, and Mark Twain's style of development in relation to that of other sources. You may also with to consider a comparison of the portrayal of gender roles in the different time periods.

Write an adventure chapter to add to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. As you prepare to write, scrutinize Twain's process of development and try to stay true to his style of building such elements as exposition and characterization, as well as his devices of projecting the undercurrents of the early adolescent mind, and his methods of developing suspense and humor in the episodes.

Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is rich in possibilities for dramatization. Ask students to develop a storyboard plan for a dramatization or film, keeping the following guidelines in mind.

• You are limited to a one-hour production. What will your starting point be? What will you select out to use in the abridged production? What is your rationale for the selection?

• Considering the fact that you must make cuts in the novel, how will you bind together what you maintain to achieve some cohesiveness in what is already a "loose" episodic structure? Use an outside narrator? Have Aunt Polly weave the episodes together as the other characters act them out? Other?

• One might argue that the “real” of the novel—that is, the sense of its “simple, honest, natural” portrayal of boyhood—emerges from Twain’s early “stream of consciousness” development. What modes of dramatic presentation would you use to project this “mindstream” element to the audience while still preserving the “honesty” of “inner consciousness” that Twain captures on paper?

Assessment:

Evaluate students on the following criteria:

• level of serious and cooperative participation in research and collaborative assignments.
• level of discernment in contributions from research and to collaborative work.
• substantive contributions to class discussion and special projects.
• range and depth in analysis.
• organization, meaningful substance, rhetorical skill, and poise in formal oral presentation.
• seriousness of purpose in following through on creative writing assignments.
• alignment of written performance with writing process rubric.
• willingness to volunteer for special activities.
• general level of engagement in all activities and assignments.

Sources:

Print:

• Howells, William Dean. My Mark Twain. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997.
• Lewis, R.W.B. The American Adam. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955.

Authors:

• Jayne Karsten, English, Grades 9-12
  The Key School
  Annapolis, MD US