Mark Twain and Industrial America: Explorations in A Connecticut Yankee

Promoting the Fruits of Industrialism
Lesson Plan 2

From the University of California edition, 1983.

Objectives

After this lesson, students will understand:

that advertising involves subtext that plays on the audience's assumptions and emotions.
that Twain uses advertising to satirize knight-errantry in Connecticut Yankee.

Students will know:

some of the assumptions that advertisers of the late nineteenth century played on to sell their products.
the characteristics that Twain felt knights-errant and advertisers share.

Students will be able to:

identify the ways Mark Twain satirizes knights by making them advertise anachronistic products.
describe how both the novel and late-nineteenth-century ads play to particular audiences.

Materials

Resource Page 4
pencil/pen and paper
Connecticut Yankee

Procedure

Step 1: Introduction
List some common techniques of advertising, including flattering the audience, creating a perceived need, playing on emotions, etc. Ask the students briefly if they can identify those techniques in any commercials or magazine ads they have seen recently. Describe the Industrial Revolution as an age of many new products and the birth of America as a consumer nation, following the information presented on Resource Page 4. To examine how Hank uses these methods in sixth-century Britain, direct students to the beginning of chapter 16 in the novel (where Hank comes upon La Cote Male Taile, the soap-seller). Ask the students to identify some of the techniques that La Cote uses to sell his product.

Step 2
As a class, look together at the Remington Typewriter ad from the Resource Page. Identify the product, its audience, the magazine in which it appears, persuasive techniques employed, and any assumptions under which the ad works (e.g. that teachers have so much work that it needs to be lightened).

Step 3
Individually, students should choose one of the four remaining ads on the Resource Page. They should answer the same questions in detail on paper.

Step 4
As a class, working from the notes that students have taken on their products, compose a comprehensive "set of assumptions" about late-nineteenth-century American life. List these in a column on the board.

Step 5
Direct the students back to chapter 16 of the novel. Hank introduces many similar nineteenth-century conveniences to the Britons, but the knights advertise them in different ways. Guide the class, looking closely at the scene, in finding what assumptions the knight works under in selling soap. Write these on the board in a column beside the first list. Point out obvious differences in the culture, and ask students what makes it so funny that Twain chooses to portray knights in this way.

Step 6
Together, answer the following questions:

Do you think that the knights were effective in their sales techniques?
Hank thinks the knights look ridiculous, and he intends to undermine knight-errantry in this way. Does his plan work? Do you think it would work for a culture brought up to respect knights and the ideas they promote? How realistic are Hank's expectations?
How long-lasting are the knights' efforts? Do they really make a difference?

Follow-Up and Evaluation

Students can be evaluated on their answers to the questions, on their individual ads, and their participation in class discussion.