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Teaching Pudd'nhead Wilson

Funny title + nerdy main character = great novel.

Activities: 13
Quiz Questions: 110

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Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson may just be a better read than that way more famous book of his, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Yeah, Mark—we said it. What are you gonna do about it?

Set in a Southern town during the years leading up to the Civil War, Pudd'nhead Wilson is all about the trouble that ensues after a slave switches the identities of her master's white baby and her own light-skinned baby. And when we say trouble, we're talking deception, betrayal, and even murder.

Yeah, it's pretty exciting stuff—way more exciting than a teenage boy floating a raft down the Mississippi River. One of the reasons why is perhaps that Pudd'nhead is what some might call a nerd. For one thing, he's got all of these weird hobbies: reading palms, collecting people's fingerprints, constructing his own almanac. He's a little socially awkward, too: after making a joke that nobody gets, he becomes a complete outcast in his town. But it works out, since it just so happens that one of his weird little hobbies is exactly what allows him to save the whole town from a murderer. You and your high schoolers will be rooting along as Pudd'nhead goes from Town Zero to Town Hero.

In this guide, you'll find

an examination of the culture in Dawson's Landing (hint: even worse than Dawson's Creek).
an activity based around developing a code of ethics on behalf of mayoral candidate Puddn'head.
an analysis of Roxy and Tom's behavior and deserved punishment through Puddn'head's eyes.

Let our guide help you and your high schoolers see the upsides to Twain's dweeb of a protagonist.

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Shmoop is a labor of love from folks who love to teach. Our teaching guides will help you supplement in-classroom learning with fun, engaging, and relatable learning materials that bring literature to life.

Inside each guide you'll find quizzes, activity ideas, discussion questions, and more—all written by experts and designed to save you time. Here are the deets on what you get with your teaching guide:

13 – 18 Common Core-aligned activities to complete in class with your students, including detailed instructions for you and your students
Discussion and essay questions for all levels of students
Reading quizzes for every chapter, act, or part of the text
Resources to help make the book feel more relevant to your 21st-century students
A note from Shmoop’s teachers to you, telling you what to expect from teaching the text and how you can overcome the hurdles

Want more help teaching Teaching Pudd'nhead Wilson?

Check out all the different parts of our corresponding learning guide.

Instructions for You

Objective: Ethics is a foreign concept to the peeps in Dawson's Landing. Everyone works off his or her own agenda rather than considering fancy things like morality. It's all about personal preference and getting ahead; a pretty sad state of affairs for a town losing the run of itself.

But never fear. Pudd'nhead's here, and he's running for mayor. The students are going to become his campaign team in this hour-long activity and introduce a new-and-improved code of ethics for the town as he embarks on his bid to get elected.

Materials Needed: a copy of the text and/or our Shmoop summary page

Step 1: Get the kids up to speed with a code of ethics by having them draw one up for the classroom. Talk to them about what this entails (guidelines for acting appropriately) and then have a five minute class discussion where all the students can contribute.

Examples could include:

Putting your hand up before speaking
Not making fun of other people's ideas
Being respectful towards the teacher
Submitting assignments and homework on time

Encourage the students to explain why they're making their suggestions. This will get them thinking about how and why ethics come about; essentially, it's so that people act in a manner that's conducive to a successful community (in this case, the class).

Step 2: As said, part of Puddn'head's election manifesto will be a new code of ethics for the town, to alert the townspeople what he'll be expecting as mayor.

Get the students to divide into groups of three or four. They'll be drawing a campaign poster, which should include a picture of Twain's titular character and five key ethical rules that Puddn'head wants to introduce.

The rules should just be one sentence long, and they have 15 minutes to do this.

Step 3: The campaign's going nicely, but there's been a lot of inappropriate shenanigans going down recently in Dawson's Landing. The committee needs to respond to these issues, to show that Pudd'nead's able to deal with whatever comes his way. He's not letting Dawson's Landing become a gangster's paradise.

Get the committee to create a transcript for a 200-word speech that Pudd'nhead will give on the radio responding to recent events, telling the people of the town what further rules he'd implement. The students could think about the following:

Harsher penalties for robberies
Gambling would be outlawed
No dueling in the streets

We want your students to realize that many people in the town don't abide by ethics and rather choose to act as they see fit. This will also reveal how ethics is not a consistent entity that can be imposed on any community: rather it is dependent on and responsive to the people it will affect.

The speech should refer directly to the text, be in the first person, and take approximately 20 minutes for students to get it together.

Step 4: We're nearing the end of the campaign, and Pudd'nhead's ahead in the polls, but some people still haven't grasped the difference between right and wrong.

Pudd'nhead's going around to the townspeople's homes, to talk to them about his campaign and code of ethics. The committee has to prepare him, so they'll need to draw up a list of ten potential questions that the townspeople will have for him about things they want to see changed, and the answers he should give.

The questions from the townspeople should be one sentence and about various issues still plaguing the town (drawing directly from the text). The answers can be two to three sentences, and they have 20 minutes to get this together.

Here's a few potential topics they should include:

Disrespect to family
Equality for all
No slandering of individuals in public, such as with crude jokes

Your students ran a clean campaign, so high fives on that.

Instructions for Your Students

Ethics is a foreign concept to the peeps in Dawson's Landing. Everyone works off his or her own agenda rather than considering fancy things like morality. It's all about personal preference and getting ahead; a pretty sad state of affairs for a town losing the run of itself.

But never fear. Pudd'nhead's here, and he's running for mayor. You and your classmates become his campaign team in this hour-long activity and introduce a new and improved code of ethics for the town as he embarks on his bid to get elected.

Cool? Cool.

Step 1: Get up to speed with a code of ethics by drawing one up for the classroom. Your teacher will talk about what this entails (guidelines for acting appropriately) and then have a five-minute class discussion where you can contribute.

Examples could include

Putting your hand up before speaking
Not making fun of other people's ideas
Being respectful towards the teacher
Submitting assignments and homework on time

Explain why you're making your suggestions, to get thinking about how and why ethics come about; essentially, it's so that people act in a manner that's conducive to a successful community (in this case, the class).

Step 2: As said, part of Puddn'head's election manifesto will be a new code of ethics for the town, to alert the townspeople what he'll be expecting as mayor.

Divide into groups of three or four. You'll be drawing a campaign poster, which should include a picture of Twain's titular character and five key ethical rules that Puddn'head wants to introduce.

The rules should just be one sentence long, and you have 15 minutes to do this.

Your group should create a transcript for a 200-word speech that Pudd'nhead will give on the radio responding to recent events, telling the people of the town what further rules he'd implement. You could think about the following:

Harsher penalties for robberies
Gambling would be outlawed
No dueling in the streets

We want you to realize that many people in the town don't abide by ethics and rather choose to act as they see fit. This will also reveal how ethics is not a consistent entity that can be imposed on any community: rather it is dependent on and responsive to the people it will affect.

The speech should refer directly to the text, be in the first person, and take approximately 20 minutes to get it together.

Step 4: We're nearing the end of the campaign, and Pudd'nhead's a(pudd')head in the polls, but some people still haven't grasped the difference between right and wrong.

Pudd'nhead's going around to the townspeople's homes, to talk to them about his campaign and code of ethics. Your committee has to prepare him, so you'll need to draw up a list of ten potential questions that the townspeople will have for him about things they want to see changed, and the answers he should give.