Huckleberry Fin

5/6

I read this in English class of my 10th-grade year in high school. we spent a lot of time explaining satire and why Mark Twain used so much of it. It was interesting in seeing us read the book aloud. we were told that the Nigger word could be replaced as we read but if we wanted to read it and get the effect of the over use we can. I read it aloud to feel it on my tongue (before this I had only heard few use it and I personally did not like racial slurs), it was a heavy word but as I read aloud it got easier to use as if the word lost value. After class, I was threatened and in that moment I was glad of my "racially intolerant" friends standing around me as several African American kids twice my size tried to start a physical altercation. It alerted me to the tension in the school and how each person sees themselves. I became aware of my small group and its lack of diversity and made changes.

the book is controversial and it should be but it should be in schools! It opens us up to ideas we may not have seen before. It makes us confront the themes in our own society. Thank you, Mr. Pappas, (where ever you are ) for challenging us and forcing us to read such a "horrible" book.