Originally Posted by 33girl (Post 2017811)

When I was 12, I pronounced Arab as Ay-rab in class and everyone laughed at me. I honestly thought that was the pronunciation and had no idea it was derogatory. I'm glad I was corrected! Not that we had any Arabs anywhere in our town, which of course is why I was ignorant about it.

I don't think the n-word and the c-word are in the same category. TNT can show a Law & Order rerun where the n-bomb gets dropped multiple times and nothing happens. (It was an episode where Courtney B Vance was accused of killing his white boss and he was the one who used the word.) If they had an episode with the c-bomb, I doubt they would get away with that no matter the context, they would probably get fined.

The only reason that racial terms have become as offensive as they have is because the country as a whole has changed. The c-word, however, has been offensive I think pretty much since its creation.

Originally Posted by Drolefille (Post 2017861)

I just don't think HF is taught well enough for students to get that. I didn't at that age. I think I got "slavery is bad" and "this is hard to read" out of it, honestly.

Originally Posted by Mark Twain

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray; and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was, and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie-and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie- I found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter- and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. HUCK FINN

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time; in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him agin in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"- and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

Originally Posted by Drolefille (Post 2017862)

But if the book was a classic would you teach it? Or the movie? And if you don't think the c-word is comparable, what about slurs against Hispanics or Asians? My question then is when do you introduce kids to things they actually haven't heard.

Originally Posted by 33girl (Post 2017971)

Well, I don't know of anything that has repeated c-words and is a classic (except for maybe The Filth and the Fury) so kind of a moot point.

But yes, Hispanic/Asian slurs would be more on a par with HF. As to when is a good time to teach it, I'd say whenever it is that kids can say "naughty" words in general without laughing like Beavis and Butt-Head for an hour. When that is (having no direct access to adolescents these days) I don't know anymore.

I don't think you should teach a book JUST because it's a classic. "Classic" has become a pretty elastic definition, and there's YA fiction (and movies and TV shows) that's probably a LOT better for teaching whatever you want to put across than the classics. I mean, if I wanted to teach my students about homosexual stereotypes, I'd pop in the DVD of The Celluloid Closet.

Originally Posted by AGDee (Post 2017980)

My impression, when we studied English Lit (which was the year we read all these books), was that it was really a study of the history of literature. For this reason, we read Beowulf first, then Canterbury Tales, then Shakespeare, etc. We finished with On The Road. We went in the order that they were written and it was a study of how literature evolved through history.

ETA: It was 10th grade for us and is still the 10th grade curriculum here. By 10th grade, these kids have heard it all.