The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

This novel is an idyllic chronicle of boyhood, born out of memories Mark Twain held of himself as a barefooted boy in a small southern town on the Mississippi River in mid-nineteenth-century America. His mother became Aunt Polly, and the friends and adults he knew served as models for the other characters. In the introduction to the novel, Twain tells readers that he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer not only “for the entertainment of boys and girls” but also to “pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves.” Its major appeal is to young boys who, feeling confined and restricted, wish they could be like Tom and camp in the woods or on an uninhabited island, track down stolen treasure, or play at pirates and robbers. At the same time, adults see in Tom the conventional high-spirited child, bad but always loveable, the living embodiment of a love of freedom and fun that they more than envy.

About the Series:

Novel/Drama curriculum units contain complete lesson plans with preliminary and follow-up work, teacher notes with plot summary, background, and rationale, ready-to-use worksheets, and suggested answers for student questions. These study guides encourage the development of thinking, reading, speaking, research, and writing skills as well as critical thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.