Mark Twain- Teaching About American Authors
Mark Twain lesson plans can shed light on his famous works, like "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
By Debra Karr
When we think classic American tales, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" may come to mind. Mark Twain, one of the most prolific American writers of the nineteenth century, gave us essays, short stories, novels, poetry and sketches that reflected his surroundings, his upbringing, and the political landscape of his times.
Born in Florida, Missouri in 1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens became fascinated with the Mississippi River and the steamboats that floated on its waters during the 1800's. Samuel's brief stint as a steamboat pilot came to a halt when the Civil War broke out. Moving to various states like New York, Philadelphia, and Iowa may have been the impetus that eventually landed Samuel travel writing assignments. Like his changing geography, his genres varied as well. Mark Twain was the name he used to author his satirical pieces.
Teaching about Mark Twain and his writing has so many wonderful benefits. Cross-curricular resources and issues can be explored. Some of these topics inlcude geography, the abolition of slavery, dialect, culture, the Civil War, pioneers, and the Mississippi River. The next group of lessons help to focus on some of these areas, whether students are asked to create a map, write a compare/contrast essay, or build an interactive scrapbook.
Mark Twain Lesson Plans:
This lesson invites students to explore the history and geography of the Great Plains by having them produce maps, and create brochures that describe the region, employ compare/contrast writing strategies as they compare descriptions of the Plains from various time periods and different cultural perspectives. This is an excellent lesson for language arts, history and geography because it utilizes all three areas pretty seamlessly. Mark Twain's memoir "Roughing It" describe his experience as he crossed the Plains in a stagecoach in 1861. It might be beneficial to use his memoir when writing comparisons to give more insight into Twain as an author.
In this lesson, students look at the various types of essays (persuasive, descriptive, compare and contrast, etc.) and then research and discuss how Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass implemented various strategies to make their writing more effective. I like that this lesson provides insight into the work of Twain and Douglass and that it allows students to exercise critical thinking skills. I might do some biographical work on the authors first, so that students have a better understanding of the time period, culture, and attitudes of days past, and maybe have students design a social network page for each author to incorporate technology into the lesson.
Students learn that in order for a parody to be successful, the reader must be familiar with the work that is being parodied. As students look at the parody of "To Be Or Not To Be" from "The Adventures of Huckleberry" Finn, they are asked to write their own parodies. This lesson is quite simplified. I think finding out students' background knowledge about works being parodied is essential. Prior knowledge is what will ultimately make or break this lesson.
This is an excellent lesson for incorporating language arts and technology. Students explore Mark Twain's online, interactive scrapbook and then in groups create their own cooperative scrapbooks. The information in this lesson is excellent because it gives many particulars regarding Twain's life. Breaking down each section of the interactive scrapbook into an individual lesson may be the best way to make this entire lesson manageable.
