Mark Twain and American humor
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=327
A lesson plan for Grade 11 English Language Arts
About this resource
- Appropriate grades
- 11
- Provider
- National Endowment for the Humanities
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In this three-part lesson, students examine structure and characterization in the short story and consider the significance of humor through a study of Mark Twain's “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
In Part I, through skits and storytelling, students first examine the structure of Twain's story and the role he creates for his tall-tale storyteller, Simon Wheeler. They then investigate Twain's use of dialect by continuing a story that Wheeler starts to tell, imitating his comic style.
In Part II, students compare Twain's story with one of the Sut Lovingood stories by George Washington Harris, again examining the story's structure by performing it as a skit. After considering how this structure “frames” the trickster Sut Lovingood, as compared to the frame Twain creates for his trickster, Jim Smiley, students produce a character sketch of Harris' comic protagonist and a sample of his humorous dialect.
Finally, in Part III, students read a humorous story by Nathaniel Hawthorne in order to gain perspective on Twain's brand of humor and its significance within the context of American literary tradition. After debating the merits of “moral” humor like Hawthorne's as compared with the “folk” humor of Harris and Twain, students test the possibilities of blending these traditions by recasting a paragraph of Hawthorne's story in dialect style.
The goals of this lesson are:
- to analyze the use of literary conventions and devices to develop character and point of view in the short story
- to investigate the purposes and significance of literary humor
- to examine Mark Twain's storytelling style in relation to that of other American humorists
North Carolina Curriculum Alignment
English Language Arts (2004)
Grade 11 — English III
- Goal 1: The learner will demonstrate increasing insight and reflection to print and non-print text through personal expression.
- Objective 1.01: Create memoirs that give an audience a sense of how the past can be significant for the present by:
- elaborating upon a significant past episode from the student's current perspective.
- projecting the student's voice in the work through reflective interpretation of relationships to people and events.
-writing for a specific audience and purpose. - Objective 1.02: Reflect and respond expressively to texts so that the audience will:
- discover multiple perspectives.
- investigate connections between life and literature.
- explore how the student's life experiences influence his or her response to the selection.
- recognize how the responses of others may be different.
- articulate insightful connections between life and literature.
-consider cultural or historical significance.
- Objective 1.01: Create memoirs that give an audience a sense of how the past can be significant for the present by:
- Goal 2: The learner will inform an audience by using a variety of media to research and explain insights into language and culture.
- Objective 2.01: Research ideas, events, and/or movements related to United States culture by:
- locating facts and details for purposeful elaboration.
- organizing information to create a structure for purpose, audience, and context.
- excluding extraneous information.
-providing accurate documentation. - Objective 2.02: Examine and explain how culture influences language through projects such as:
- showing the evolution of forms of communication in the United States (e.g., the Pony Express, telegraph, telephone, fax, e-mail).
- tracing the development of technology in a particular area such as audio or video recordings, radio, television, and film.
- demonstrating proficiency in accessing and sending information electronically, using conventions appropriate to the audience.
- Objective 2.01: Research ideas, events, and/or movements related to United States culture by:
- Goal 4: The learner will critically analyze text to gain meaning, develop thematic connections, and synthesize ideas.
- Objective 4.02: Develop thematic connections among literary works by:
- connecting themes that occur across genres or works from different time periods.
- using specific references to validate connections.
-examining how representative elements such as mood, tone, and style impact the development of a theme.
- Objective 4.02: Develop thematic connections among literary works by:
- Goal 5: The learner will interpret and evaluate representative texts to deepen understanding of literature of the United States.
- Objective 5.01: Interpret the significance of literary movements as they have evolved through the literature of the United States by:
- analyzing the characteristics of literary genres, including fiction, non-fiction, drama, and poetry, and how the selection of genre shapes meaning.
- relating ideas, styles, and themes within literary movements of the United States.
- understanding influences that progress through the literary movements of the United States.
-evaluating the literary merit and/or historical significance of a work from Colonial Literature, the Romantic Era, Realism, the Modern Era, and Contemporary Literature. - Objective 5.02: Analyze the relationships among United States authors and their works by:
- making and supporting valid responses about the text through references to other works and authors.
-comparing texts to show similarities or differences in themes, characters, or ideas.
- Objective 5.01: Interpret the significance of literary movements as they have evolved through the literature of the United States by:
