The Hero"s Journey in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Teaching Twain and the Monomyth
ELA Teachers! Raise your hand if you've ever had your classes read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or even just considered it.
Now, keep your hand up if you've ever used Twain's masterpiece to teach the stages and archetypes of the Hero's Journey.
You've never even thought about it? Well, you're in good company.
And you're also in luck, because here are some tips on how to teach both the Hero's Journey and Huck Finn.
Huck's development follows the stages of the Hero's Journey described by Joseph Campbell.
Huck's Journey is one of internal growth and discovery.
He goes from the view that slavery was ordained by God, a bedrock belief in his small Missouri town, to a realization that enslaving another is wrong and unjust.
He develops from a child to a maturing individual who thinks for himself.
That's the Hero's Journey of Huckleberry Finn.
To get there Twain takes him through adventures and tests that Campbell later identified as stages of the Monomyth.
Many teachers show "The Adventures of Huck Finn," the 1993 film in which Elijah Wood plays the young adventurer, as an entertaining way to finish up a unit on the novel.
Watching and talking about the movie can bring into sharp focus the lessons and ideas in the story.
However, teachers can expand the curriculum beyond a basic "watch and compare" lesson by introducing the concept of the Hero's Journey.
Before showing the movie, describe one version of the stages and archetypes of the Hero's Journey.
This will prepare students to identify those aspects in the story.
Then have students review the Hero's Journey that summarizes its stages and archetypes in a format that allows them to take notes.
Show the film with several three to five-minute breaks to allow students to make their notations.
Once the film is completed, you can perform a number of activities and assignments.
Students can write out responses to prompts in sentences or paragraphs.
They can work in class, alone or in teams, or they can formalize the responses at home.
The prompts can also serve as the basis for class discussion or can serve as a test.
Alternatively, teachers can beef up the assignment and turn it into a longer project requiring independent research and a formal essay on a topic suggested by the teacher.
Another possible project is for students to present their findings to the class with posters, diagrams, PowerPoint presentations, or even clips from the film to support their conclusions.
The end result of Huck Finn's Hero's Journey is a restatement of the basic theme of the book.
The book details the experiences Huck must have in order to learn the lesson; many of those are identifiable as the stages of the Monomyth.
Teaching the Hero's Journey with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an effective way to explore the thematic lessons of this novel while, at the same time, exploring one of the basic mythic and literary paradigms of Western culture.
Now, keep your hand up if you've ever used Twain's masterpiece to teach the stages and archetypes of the Hero's Journey.
You've never even thought about it? Well, you're in good company.
And you're also in luck, because here are some tips on how to teach both the Hero's Journey and Huck Finn.
Huck's development follows the stages of the Hero's Journey described by Joseph Campbell.
Huck's Journey is one of internal growth and discovery.
He goes from the view that slavery was ordained by God, a bedrock belief in his small Missouri town, to a realization that enslaving another is wrong and unjust.
He develops from a child to a maturing individual who thinks for himself.
That's the Hero's Journey of Huckleberry Finn.
To get there Twain takes him through adventures and tests that Campbell later identified as stages of the Monomyth.
Many teachers show "The Adventures of Huck Finn," the 1993 film in which Elijah Wood plays the young adventurer, as an entertaining way to finish up a unit on the novel.
Watching and talking about the movie can bring into sharp focus the lessons and ideas in the story.
However, teachers can expand the curriculum beyond a basic "watch and compare" lesson by introducing the concept of the Hero's Journey.
Before showing the movie, describe one version of the stages and archetypes of the Hero's Journey.
This will prepare students to identify those aspects in the story.
Then have students review the Hero's Journey that summarizes its stages and archetypes in a format that allows them to take notes.
Show the film with several three to five-minute breaks to allow students to make their notations.
Once the film is completed, you can perform a number of activities and assignments.
Students can write out responses to prompts in sentences or paragraphs.
They can work in class, alone or in teams, or they can formalize the responses at home.
The prompts can also serve as the basis for class discussion or can serve as a test.
Alternatively, teachers can beef up the assignment and turn it into a longer project requiring independent research and a formal essay on a topic suggested by the teacher.
Another possible project is for students to present their findings to the class with posters, diagrams, PowerPoint presentations, or even clips from the film to support their conclusions.
The end result of Huck Finn's Hero's Journey is a restatement of the basic theme of the book.
The book details the experiences Huck must have in order to learn the lesson; many of those are identifiable as the stages of the Monomyth.
Teaching the Hero's Journey with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an effective way to explore the thematic lessons of this novel while, at the same time, exploring one of the basic mythic and literary paradigms of Western culture.