A Study of the Psychological Development of Teenagers in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Its Application to English Teaching

• Main Authors: Mei-ling Shyu, 徐美玲
• Other Authors: Shui-mu Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/25936683299418613743

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語學系 === 93 === Abstract Huck in Huck Finn by Mark Twain was not accepted by his society before he got rich and had been abused by his father since he was little. Although he was born in a broken family – no one cared about him, he never gave himself up. He tried hard to escape from his father, and the civilization of his society by beginning his trip with the black Jim. On his journey, he encountered a lot of difficulties and had the experience of how awful cruel human beings could be to one another; however, he still kept his innocence and conscience to help others. Nowadays in Taiwan, an increasing number of single families, more and more children under the abuse of their parents and the decay of morality in our society have caused a lot of mental problems to the teenagers. That is one of the reasons why more and more students kill themselves. Moreover, the researcher notices that most teenagers lack self-identity, and don’t know what they really are and what’s the value of their lives. They always feel lonely and isolated, not knowing where they should go, just like Huck. Huck can be their model to show them that they should never give up. If Huck can make it and find his own way, why can’t they? That is why the researcher applies the novel to the teaching. The researcher also hopes that by teaching literature we teachers can arouse students’ interest and improve their basic English skills – listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating. This study is divided into six parts. Chapter One is divided into five sections – the biography of Mark Twain, the social background of the novel, Huck Finn, its significance as the teaching material, the definition of the psychological development of teenagers as well as the organization of the thesis. Chapter Two exemplifies the three main influential factors to the psychological development of Huck – namely family, peer and society. This chapter is divided into three sections. The researcher gives some examples of each factor and discusses how they influence Huck and teach students to avoid bad influences and attain good ones. Chapter Three is divided into three sections. The first section analyzes the suitability of Huck Finn as the teaching material because of its language and historical plot. The second one analyzes the literature teaching techniques the researcher uses in this thesis. The third one is the pilot study, which inverviews junior high school teachers and asks students’ opinions about applying Huck Finn as the teaching material to their English class. Chapter Four includes three sections. The first section is the lesson design – to display some extracts of Huck Finn and show why and how these extracts are chosen. Besides the three-period teaching plan, the teaching methods applied in this teaching plan are shown, too. The second section is the teaching process of my experimental classes. In this section, the researcher also discusses activities in the whole teaching process. The third section is assessment – including traditional assessment and nontraditional assessment. In Chapter Five, the researcher discusses the results in the whole teaching process. At first, the participants, the instrument and data collection procedures in this study are mentioned. Then the following aspects will be discussed: the analysis of the responses of the pre-instructional and post-instructional questionnaires; the results of the grades of the pre-test and post-test the assessment of the study and students’ responses to English literature learning. Chapter Six is divided into three sections: the summary of the novel, the major findings of the study, and suggestions for further study.