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Abstract

Critics and classroom teachers frequently read Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a stock character, the comic stereotype of the superstitious and loyal slave. However, using perspective-taking strategies, such as asking open-ended questions and using paired texts to invite students to interrogate Jim's ruses and his assumption of a mask of servility, can be used to challenge reductive readings of Jim that have led to censorship of the novel.

Author Biography

Jean Filetti is a Professor of English at Christopher Newport University. She chaired the English Department from 2007 to 2016 and currently directs the Teacher Preparation Program. Dr. Filetti teaches graduate courses in instructional pedagogy and undergraduate courses in American literature, composition, and professional writing. The author and co-author of numerous books and articles, Dr. Filetti has focused her scholarship on minor realists and political/social/educational institutions at the turn of the century, faculty mentoring, and assessment of learning.

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