Structure and Approach

One option is to lay out chapters by virtue, e.g., humility, compassion, etc., and then follow the development of those in the journey.

I've stopped (2/12) reading too far ahead (now on Chapter 3) to take some side readings on the 'Two Providences'.
Thanks to Max, and to the footnotes in the annotated HF, there are two areas that have a great deal of analysis:

THE TWO PROVIDENCES
The Two Providences, which is basically Miss Watson vs the Widow Douglas. Miss Watson represents the institutional church view that the reason to behave is to avoid 'the bad place'. The widow represents the (I don't know how to label this yet) view that it's treating other people well, loving your neighbor, is how you avoid hell.
This is, in my view, classical religion, and Edgar Branch and others point out that both are still self-serving.
In my view, the widow's Providence is closer to the great truth that Jesus espouses, and for that matter, you find in all great religions- that the 'Kingdom', self realization and union with God, comes as one let's go of the self, lives selflessly, unattached to the superficial desires of this world.
More on this as we progress, but the stage is set by chapter 3, that Huck must choose between these two world views.

Second, and probably more prevalent, is the conversion of Huck. There are several instances of this, especially the scene (I'm recalling without reading it) where Huck pronounces that he would rather go to hell than to turn Jim in to the slave traders. Love triumphs, as does selflessness.

So the approach will be to follow the thread of Hucks struggle with these two providences. Or I should say, one approach or one line.

CONSOLATION/DESOLATION
However, thanks to some of the reading I've done so far, I've also realized that there will be an opportunity to directly tie in St Ignatius' great work on Consolation/Desolation in the Spiritual Exercises.

There is a particular passage that I recall that represents clearly what Ignatius called 'False Consolation'. Huck, at some point which I'll flush out later, decides to return Jim to Miss Watson, and he feels a sudden sense of calm and peace. Ignatius says that we should beware of a consolation (which he defines as a turning toward God) that in fact is false, because, in his 15th century language, the devil uses consolation to trick the person.

So I'll be looking for the 4 variations :Consolation. False Consolation. Desolation. False Desolation.

Finally, Max helped me externalize this: I wonder whether superstition in Jim, rather than be a source of the readers disdain and feeling of superiority, even comic relief, actually contributes to Jim's character?

SUPERSTITION AND IGNORANCE
There is a thread of showing the power of superstition in Huck and Jim. I wonder how they both are formed by this? Is there a difference between them?
Same for ignorance. Huck is uneducated. His Pap is uneducated. But Huck's is the result of laziness. Pap has a disdain for education and in fact is proud that his ancestors were illiterate.

CONTEMPLATION

There are some incidents of the contemplative experience that break in, sometimes in stark contrast to the base story.
In Chapter 7, Huck has completed his bloody escape designed to fool everyone into thinking he has been murdered, and is floating down the river to his destination Jackson Island in a canoe he found.
"I laid there and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky, not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonlshine; I never knowed it before."

STYLISTIC COMPARISON
The idea, which I get from Brown, is to take two different characters and see how they handle the same situation, e.g., getting lost in a storm.
Or conversely, take two similar characters and see how the handle the same situation (Prince and the Pauper).

THE RIVER AND THE SHORE
The shore represents vulgarity, greed, fraud, violence, malice.
The raft represents freedom, security, happiness, and harmony with physical nature.
 -Hutchinson

SOUND HEART/DEFORMED CONSCIENCE
From Twains diary:
" a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and the conscience suffers defeat."

IRONY

Irony involves a deliberate misstatement designed to highlight the longtime adverse affects of a grossly immoral act, a blatantly dishonest deed, or an inhumane and un-Christian practice.