The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn writing assignment

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnwriting assignment

2. Your task: • Develop a claim regarding one of the following in the novel: nature vs. civilization, morality, or education—book knowledge vs life experience. (Be sure your claim has two points to it.) • Support that claim using textual evidence from the novel—in the form of direct quotations. • The outcome will be a minimum 4-paragraph essay.

3. Writing the essay Be sure to review your notes on essay writing, including the guidelines for the introduction, body paragraphs (formatted paragraph model), and conclusion. What follows is an explanation of how to embed the quotations into your body paragraphs.

4. ICE…3-step quoting Introduce…Lead into using the quotation by explaining the surrounding circumstances of the quotation; set up the context so it is logical. Control & Cite…Insert the quotation within your own sentence, making sure it is grammatically correct. Explain…Write at least two sentences that explain how the quotation supports the point you are trying to prove—in other words, how it is relevant to your claim or thesis statement.

5. Example ICE What follows is an example of an “ICE”d quotation. For the example, we will consider the following claim as the one being supported by the quotation: In the novel, superstition serves as an excuse for Huck to avoid taking personal responsibility, as well as a means to explain the unexplained.

6. Introduce: Early in the novel, as Huck and Jim take refuge on Jackson’s Island, Huck plays a trick on Jim and places a dead rattlesnake on Jim’s bedroll. The snake’s mate returns and bites Jim, and Huck lets Jim think it was the bad luck of touching a rattlesnake skin earlier that causes the bad luck. Control & cite: Huck thinks to himself, “[…] I warn’t going to let Jim find out it was all my fault,[…]” (Twain 47). Explain: This illustrates the role superstition plays for Huck as he uses it to remove blame from himself. Clearly, attributing the bad luck to a superstition Jim believes allows Huck to ignore the personal responsibility he bears for Jim’s injury.

7. You may notice that the guidelines for writing a formatted paragraph are basically at work when “ICE”ing a quotation: the quotation itself (and the introduction to it) serves as a CD, while the explanation serves as the CMs. Notice, as well, that the ratio of CDs to CMs remains the same: at least two (2) CMs for each CD. Each body paragraph needs to include two (2) CDs, (for this assignment that would be two quotations), and two CMs for each CD.

8. Reminders when ICEing quotations: • Choose quotations that are brief (keep them to approximately 10 – 15 words). • Your own explanation and analysis needs to make up most of the ICE; the quotation is only necessary as textual evidence for support of your ideas. • Be sure to cite quotations correctly: use the author’s last name and page number (Twain 227). • Use an ellipsis in brackets […] if omitting any of the quotation (as in the example on the earlier slide).

9. Guidelines for essay writing: • Maintain literary present tense when analyzing literature. • Use transitions between ideas within paragraphs and between paragraphs. • Do not use first- or second-person pronouns (e.g. avoid “I,” “me,” “you,” “your”). • Try to use newly acquired vocabulary, but be sure you are using it correctly. • Proofread carefully to avoid errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

10. Be sure to refer to the handout on developing an evidence-based claim and the rubric for evidence-based claim writing. Happy Writing! 