Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Unit Review Sheet

Facts and Definitions

Lesson 1: Introduction to Mark Twain and the Novel

• Slavery was a cruel institution that once dominated the southern economy in the United States and impacted African Americans until it was abolished.
• Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn reveals to the reader how society was constructed and how slaves were separated from their families and forced to live according to slave codes created by white society. The novel uses common speech and the dialect of the time, which puts the reader in the setting.
• There were slave and free states during this time in history.
• Mark Twain lived along the Mississippi river and was familiar with river life.
• Dialect is a regional form of language characterized by varying spellings, pronunciations, and grammar rules.
• The dialect in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn helps the novel seem real because it reflects the way an uneducated person might have spoken, and it also shows how slaves spoke.
• All of the characters expressed themselves in different ways depending on their status in society, their education, and even their religious and social group.

Lesson 2: Point of View

• An author uses the technique of point of view to tell a story.
• Authors can use 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or omniscient point of view to tell a story.
• A character's point of view shows how he or she feels about the world or a belief.

Lesson 3: What is Narrative Writing I

• Dialogue can help reveal what characters feels and their point of view.

Lesson 4: What is Narrative Writing II

• Dialogue between the characters aids in our understanding of Huck, Jim, Pap, and Widow Douglas.
• Using dialogue in your narrative writing helps keep the action going and engages the reader.
• What the characters say can reveal their deepest feelings and beliefs.

Lesson 5: Expository Writing

• Narrative writing tells a story. Expository writing gives or exposes information.
• Narrative writing often uses dialogue to drive the plot and reveal information about the characters.
• When you author a piece of expository writing, you are not using dialogue to drive the plot or solve a conflict. Instead, you are giving information.

Lesson 6: The Power of Persuasion

• The purpose of persuasive writing is different than that of the other types of writing. Persuasive writing is used to convince a reader that a particular point of view is the correct one.
• Persuasive writing requires a thesis statement — a sentence that provides the topic and the writer's position on the topic; the thesis statement often also includes the reasons the author gives to back up his or her position.
• You support your reasons with evidence, which can include explanations, data, statistics, quotations from experts, anecdotes, examples, or personal experiences.
• When writing persuasively, you want to appeal to the reader's logic, emotions, and beliefs.

Lesson 7: Persuasive Writing

• Gathering evidence and remaining objective can help you support a position and convince an audience that your point of view is correct, even if privately you don't actually agree with your stated position.
• Analyzing the "other side" and its arguments can make your paper stronger as you, the writer, can attempt to explain how those reasons are wrong.

Lesson 8: Hiding the Money

• We can find examples of various types of writing in both fiction and nonfiction.
• The Mississippi River is an integral part of the novel.

Lesson 9: Irony

• Irony is a literary technique that involves a contrast between how things are and how things appear to be.
• There are 3 common types of irony:
  • dramatic — situations where the reader or audience knows more about what is happening than the characters
  • situational — the outcome or effect is the opposite of what was expected.
  • verbal — the use of words that mean something different from what a person actually says

Lesson 10: Figures of Speech

• Figurative language describes techniques that involve using language to paint a vivid description or create a special effect.
• We use idioms and puns primarily as common expressions of speech.
• A pun is the use of a word or words that either have multiple meanings or sound alike, and as a result, make a sentence clever or humorous.
• Hyperbole is a description that is greatly exaggerated.
• Oxymoron bring two words with opposite meanings together.
• A simile is a comparison between two things using the words "like" or "as."
• An idiom is a figure of speech or a phrase that is not taken literally (can also refer to a dialect).

Lesson 11: Mark Twain's Influence

• Some of the book's impact on audiences can be attributed to the plain and accessible language of the characters.
• The writing is easy to follow and it keeps the reader engaged, and Twain uses several writing techniques that propel the action and keep the reader interested.

Lesson 12: The Movie Adaptation

• Directors and actors make choices when creating a film. Sometimes they follow the novel and sometimes they do not. As the audience, we need to ask why.

Final Project: Cultural Biography

• [none]