Isabel, 

      You have developed a pretty good articulation of what Twain meant by the 
   "deformed conscience" and "sound heart" of his main character.  You have
   identified some very good examples of the way that Huck's conscience
   has been "deformed" by his upbringing and the stages of how he overcomes 
   the influence of that upbringing and comes to see Jim as a (near)-equal
   traveling mate on their raft trip down the Mississippi.  

      But there are a couple of points where I think you haven't quite
   appreciated some aspects of the situation.  For instance in your 
   sentence from page 2:  "The religious values and racism that Huck is 
   exposed to are highly contradictory and cloud Huck’s conscience" is 
   true, but the real irony is that the Southern whites don't see that
   their religious values and their racism are contradictory (because
   they don't see their slaves as fully human beings).  
  
      I think you also might be a bit too optimistic about how much Huck has 
   changed by the end.  The "he was white inside" comment from p. 207 
   shows, I think, that Huck is still falling back on saying that Jim is like 
   a white person in order to justify saying he understands the good features 
   of Jim's personality and character.  In other words, you might say that he's 
   not yet able to see Jim for who he is and to accept him on his (Jim's) own 
   terms.  So your saying that Huck sees the "insignificance of race" on page 7 
   can't quite be right.
   
      The main comment I have about the structure of the paper is that it's 
   just not necessary to include some fairly big sections of what you wrote.  
   For example, the first paragraph doesn't need to include the sentences:

   "Huck and Jim are both escaping from their homes in Missouri.  They travel 
   together down the Mississippi River.  Huck is trying to get away from his 
   father and Jim is hoping to reach the free states so that he can get his 
   family back together.  Huck decides to help Jim do this, but this is not an 
   easy decision for him to make.  This novel takes place in 1830s or 1840s 
   America, when racism and slavery were rampant in the South."

   You can assume the reader already knows this background about the story, 
   so it's not necessary to repeat this.  Similarly the passage in the first
   paragraph on page 2:

   "At the time of this novel, the economy of the South was dependent upon 
   slavery.  This was a catalyst for racist beliefs.  The setting of this novel 
   is Missouri.  This is significant because of the Missouri Compromise of 1820.  
   The Missouri Compromise stated that Missouri would be granted statehood as a 
   slave state and Maine would break off from Massachusetts and become a free 
   state.  This would mean that there would be an equal number of slave and free 
   states."

   deals with something about the historical context that we talked about
   in class.  So you don't need to repeat that either -- you can assume the
   reader knows about this.

      Your writing is generally good but it tends to get wordy and
   shapeless at times. For example on page 4, you have this topic sentence 
   in a paragraph at about the middle of the page: 

   "There are several moments in the novel and key important decisions made by 
   Huck that illustrate Huck’s desertion of his conscience and that lead to a 
   change in his character."  

   This could be tightened up a lot by using the active voice:

   "Huck deserts his conscience in key decisions at several points in the novel 
   and this leads to a change in his character."  Try to avoid overusing the 
   "there are" sentences.   

      Finally, I like that you tried to tie things together with the CHQ
   in your final paragraph on page 7, but this ended up sounding a bit
   generic and superficial:  "Huck shall continue to live with an open-mind.  
   He would [did you mean "should?"] continue to develop his own perspective on 
   life and stop relying on others to tell him what is right or wrong.  He should 
   help others see the light that he discovered.  Huck should start to look at life 
   under a new lens."   I think bringing back the "deformed conscience" and "sound 
   heart" aspects of Twain's description might help make this more effective.   
   
  

   Content/Evidence -- A-

   Structure/Mechanics -- B