Category: Twain for Teachers

Winners Announced for the Second “Quarry Farm Fireplace Creative Writing Contest”

Posted on by Joe Lemak

Winners have been selected for the Quarry Farm Fireplace Creative Writing Contest sponsored by the Center for Mark Twain Studies. Two area students in grades 2-6 have been selected for their creative writings inspired by the fireplace tiles in the Quarry Farm Parlor: Treya Das Banerjee (Carder Elementary, Corning) and Elizabeth McNett (Finn Academy, Elmira). Mark Twain often encouraged his children to create and tell their own stories based off […]

New Documentary focuses on Twain’s Time in Buffalo

Posted on by Thomas Reigstad

For over three decades I poked around in the area of Twain’s connection to my hometown, Buffalo, NY. I spent countless hours in the Grosvenor Room of the Central Library in downtown Buffalo flipping through pages of the over one hundred volumes of the Local History and Local Biographies scrapbooks, taking notes from pasted newspaper clippings that contained relevant information. I read and cross-referenced entries in Buffalo City Directories of […]

Twain for Teachers: 88 Days In The Mother Lode Documentary

Posted on by John Pascal

It is safe to say that most secondary school students know Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn from their novels. But they do know less of the enormous variety in Mark Twain’s literary output and the extraordinary triumphs and tragedies of his life. If using class time to show a film, teachers must have precise learning objectives, making certain to engage students’ attention and prompt them to respond with fuller appreciation […]

21st-Century Students Respond to Sensitive Texts

Posted on by Jocelyn Chadwick & John Grassie

EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week, Jocelyn Chadwick responded to the recent removal of “sensitive texts,” including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the curriculum in Duluth Public Schools by asking “When will WE listen?” This week, Dr. Chadwick and John E. Grassie, co-authors of Teaching Literature in the Context of Literacy Instruction, share with us the voices of some of the students who they have been listening to as they tour U.S. classrooms.     In so […]

When Will WE Listen? Mark Twain Through the Lenses of Generation Z

Posted on by Jocelyn Chadwick

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Duluth Public School District in Minnesota recently decided to drop two novels from their curriculum, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird. Jocelyn Chadwick, current President of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and a former Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, is both an expert on secondary education in the U.S. and an acclaimed scholar of Mark Twain, having authored The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn. She […]

The Quarry Farm Fireplace Creative Writing Contest

Posted on by Joe Lemak

The Quarry Farm Fireplace Creative Writing Contest CMTS is pleased to announce the creation of creative writing contest for elementary school students.  Three winners will be awarded a tour of Quarry Farm, including inside the main house. A PDF copy of this assignment can be found by clicking here. Mark Twain on the Quarry Farm Porch The Center for Mark Twain Studies encourages local elementary school teachers to discuss Mark Twain’s […]

Twain for Teachers: Huckleberry Finn in an Era of Resurgent Bigotry

Posted on by Matt Seybold

A recent issue of NCTE’s English Journal includes a Special Section on “Teaching Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The editors open the section by acknowledging it “may offend some readers” and predict “There will be backlash. So be it.” In the spirit of embracing the debate, the journal has made the essays in this section free to access and download. I encourage you to do so. In the central essay of the Special Section, to which […]

Twain For Teachers: Market Your Own Patent Medicine

Posted on by John Pascal

Editor’s Note: This is the first in what we hope will be an ongoing series focused on adapting Twain to the classroom. If you have an assignment, activity, lesson plan, syllabus design, or pedagogical narrative which you would like to share with other teachers, please consider writing it up (500-1200 words) and sending it [email protected]. Now approaching its third year, the English elective “Writings of Mark Twain” at Seton Hall […]